Morgan Wallen released his latest album, I’m The Problem, last month, and the project is unique for the singer in that it features his first collaboration with a female artist. That artist is Tate McRae, who joined Wallen for “What I Want,” a duet featuring both parties expressing that they’re not really looking for anything too serious.
Morgan Wallen And Tate McRae Were Mutual Fans Of Each Other’s Work
Speaking to Audacy about the collaboration, the 32-year-old country superstar explained that he and McRae had been mutual fans of each other’s work for some time before the opportunity to hop on a song together came about.
“We have been talking about doing a song for a while,” he shared. “We’ve expressed to each other for a couple of years now that we were a fan of what each other was doing and just talked about doing a song, but it just hadn’t worked out up until now.”
“It’s my first female feature and collaboration,” the singer added. “So that’s cool. I’m excited to see how it goes and, it seems just like one of those songs that’s a no-brainer, and she made it better.”
McRae Is Wallen’s First-Ever Female Collaborator
“What I Want” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 — becoming Wallen’s fourth song to top the chart and McRae’s first — and is currently at No. 3 on the tally. Wallen also praised McRae during an interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music, calling the pop star “awesome.” “I think nobody’s really doing what she’s doing,” he said. “She seems like a new age real deal—with dancing, the singing, the type of songs she makes.”
He also revealed to Lowe that “What I Want” was the only song he sent to McRae as a possible collab, because he had a feeling that song was the right fit for her. She was awesome, man,” Wallen recalled. “She didn’t ask me a lot of questions—‘Hey, can I change this? Can I do that?’ Her range is phenomenal. You can tell… she sang the song that’s written for a duet, and she absolutely crushed it. I can’t say enough great things about her.”
Wallen Praised McRae As A “True Pop Star” And A “Prolific Songwriter”
He added to Billboard that he became a fan of McRae after his sister introduced him to her music, calling her “a true pop star, a prolific songwriter and is also an extremely underrated vocalist.”
The two were waiting for the right song to work together, and “What I Want” ended up being that song, though Wallen admitted he didn’t see it as a duet at first, “but after listening to it a few times, she kept coming to my mind as someone that would really give the song a dynamic element that I felt it deserved.”
Though “What I Want” is Wallen’s first collaboration with a female artist, he says it wasn’t for lack of trying. “I’ve reached out to a couple of people, and they’ve turned me down,” he told Billboard in 2023. “I just really want certain people, and I haven’t gotten the chance to do it yet. I’m going to keep trying to write songs for it or write with them.”
Tate McRae isn’t the only collaborator on I’m The Problem — the album also features duets with Wallen’s good friends Eric Church, HARDY, ERNEST and Post Malone.
While the superstar pair have yet to deliver the live debut of this song, Wallen is currently performing the solo version of the song on his headlining I’m The Problem Tour. Listen to Morgan Wallen and Tate McRae’s “What I Want” above.
