Cadillac Problems: Darren Waller expands into R&B with JRod, embraces life after football

Credit: ARod

Darren Waller’s new song is called “Streets Get Cold,” but it keeps his music streak red hot. The woozy track would fit right in on Drake’s “Dark Lane Demo Tapes,” or next to Pop Smoke’s “What You Know Bout Love” on a tracklist. It follows Waller’s energetic “Top Play” and shows the former tight end’s versatility.

The single is part of Waller’s upcoming project, the “Cadillac Problems” EP with multi-talented producer and engineer JRod. The two met through Waller’s tattoo artist and their creative connection was instant – their previously released song, “Mind Games,” was completed in their first session together.

“The first day I think we did like three songs and it was just like, oh, alright. It was a natural like meshing, collaboration and conversations that take place while making a record,” Waller told Kick The Concrete. “It would be like, ‘Oh, what are you saying? What’s the topic you’re writing about? Okay, we can go this direction with the hook.’ Or just kinda playing off each other naturally, it just feels great.”

See Kick The Concrete's full interview with Darren Waller

JRod has made his name as an R&B expert. He’s one of K Camp’s main engineers and he recently had what he calls a “full circle moment” when he produced Jordin Sparks and T-Pain’s song “Forever.” He’s worked with plenty of artists and appreciates Waller’s eagerness to learn and intentionality in creating. The Houston-based artist said working with Waller is “super smooth” and they had “instant chemistry.”

“Not too many artists I work with where I can come in and it’s just hit the ground running,” JRod told Kick The Concrete. “It’s usually a grace period where you’re trying to get to know each other, figure things out. But with Darren, I’m like he’s super even-keeled, down-to-earth, takes advice. Both of us, we take advice and constructive criticism well, so it’s just a super easy process for us.”

Waller is among the sports stars breaking the stereotype that athletes can’t rap, including basketball players Damian Lillard and Flau’jae and football players Ray-Ray McCloud III and Melvin Ingram, who Waller appeared with on the “Crowd Control” EP for Madden. Music is in Waller’s blood because his great-grandfather was jazz legend Fats Waller. He also used music as a therapeutic outlet when he hit rock bottom and checked into rehab for drugs and alcohol.

“That stigma definitely is out there (of athletes not being able to rap), but I kinda like the challenge with Darren just because I see he is someone that takes it really serious and he is not just in it (for) the image of it,” JRod said. “He really is in music, lives music, loves music. … He’s a student of it. So he’s willing to learn, but with that mentality of willing to learn and to dive deeper into it, you can tell he’s sharpening his sword. So it’s not just like a hobby. … I think he’s gonna knock that stigma out of the park. The music, I think it kinda speaks for itself."

Watch Darren Waller and JRod's "Streets Get Cold" video

JRod also points to Waller’s writing ability as something that separates him as an artist. Writing one’s own raps is what legitimizes an artist in hip-hop and it’s clear the former Georgia Tech standout passes the test.

“What made our process actually really easy is Darren, he’s a great writer. A lot of the hooks and stuff that we have on the project that we made, he wrote ‘em, man. He’s writing all of his verses and all that,” JRod said. “It’s easy ‘cause I can come in and just add the detail. … He comes in super, super prepared and he has a really great pen.”

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Waller is more than seven years sober now and continues to use music to process what he goes through. Life isn’t all roses and butterflies, but his past experiences put his current problems in perspective and the EP title stems from that.

“‘Cadillac Problems’ is a phrase that I heard a bunch of times from a few guys that I go to 12-step meetings with,” he shared. “It’s a lot of people in those environments that have some pretty dark pasts and a lot of problems that they overcome. So the way he used it, ‘I’ve got Cadillac problems. The problems I have today are a much better set of problems than I used to have.’ And that always kinda stuck with me.”

He offered the idea of the title to JRod because he thought it exemplified his current circumstances and the music they were making.

“I was explaining it to him because we got tracks on there where you can tell there’s real life things that we’re trying to work through and figure out,” he said, “but it’s like trying to figure out these things, figure out relationships, figure out how to go wherever we want to go, how to develop a better relationship with time and life is like much better problems than being arrested almost a handful of times and almost dying and things like that. So there’s a gratitude in it knowing that life is never ridded of problems or challenges or difficulties, but I’m blessed to have the problems I have today.”

Credit: ARod

“Streets Get Cold” is a song about the emotional push and pull after a romance fizzled out. A year ago, Waller released the single “Who Knew (Her Perspective)” after a public divorce from WNBA star Kelsey Plum. Now, it’s Waller’s time to share his own thoughts on love.

“Cadillac Problems” does have an overall R&B feel, which Waller was intentional about. Even though he’s primarily spit bars in his music up to this point, he’s always expressed that he’s more than a rapper. He’s influenced by Coldplay and Leon Bridges as much as Kendrick Lamar.

“That’s one benefit of working with JRod. He’s also an R&B artist, that’s his realm,” Waller said. “So that’s invited me more into taking risks in that type of environment, that type of vibe and kinda just the way my life has headed, I’ve had experiences to where it’s kind of forced me to open my heart up. I have like experiences of love and R&B type of topics to talk about now ‘cause I’ve kind of lived through things. So it’s a natural process of yeah, I’ve gotten to that point in my life where I’m able to talk about these things and I have somebody that I’m with that kinda challenges me to kinda go in that direction. So it’s made some songs I really like and songs that I feel are authentic of me, but also kinda keep that style of where I’m not just that either, I’m kind of just whatever I’m feeling, whatever I’m experiencing is gonna come out. It may sound different, it can have a different label, but it’s all still me at the end of the day.”

The piano-tinged “Streets Get Cold” is produced by PALE1080, who also crafted the beat for Central Cee’s “CRG” and Waller’s new banger, “Top Play.” Waller appreciates how the producer, who he has yet to meet in person, exemplifies the range he wants to showcase in his own artistry.

“The beats speak for themselves. They impact me,” Waller said. “... Whatever that young man is doing is working. It’s been an honor to have linked with him in that way. His beats are kinda like a mirror for me because they can be a certain vibe like an R&B vibe or you’ll hear with the ‘Streets Get Cold’ song it’s like yeah, it’s a whole different type of vibe than ‘Top Play,’ but it’s the same producer, which is kinda like how I am as an artist.”

Waller found the beat when he was sitting in the airport returning home from a birthday vacation to Japan in the fall. Even though he hadn’t worked on any music during the 11-day trip, the bass hit him instantly with a wave of inspiration.

“I was sitting at the gate just trying to not look like I’m just going crazy but internally I’m just like looking insane probably,” he beamed.

And fans felt it too. Waller teased “Top Play” on Jon Gruden’s Barstool Sports show in March and it’s one of the tight end’s most-played songs on Spotify with 62,000 streams in one month. He said this is the first time he’s noticed people interested beyond his core fanbase. People have even stopped him in the street to show their support.

“It’s gotten great feedback,” Waller said. “I’m not really on social media like that, but just from people in the world, that’s kind of how I judge it. I’ve been dropping music for like 10 years. There’s people that are close to me and people that really, really pay attention to what I have going on that’ll like be fans of my music and know what’s going on, but it’s not like ever really been a huge quantity of people. 

“But now, it’s like I’ve gone to places and there’s old white people that are like, ‘I heard your rap. Wow!’ Or I went to Popeye’s the other day and the dude opened the door and was like ‘Gotta put that shit on SportsCenter’ like singing the song to me. I was just like, interesting!”

Waller retired from the NFL in June after eight years in the league and a Pro Bowl season with the Las Vegas Raiders. He used music in the form of the single “Choose Wisely (Farewell)” to explain to fans why it was time to walk away. Besides the newfound freedom to travel more, the pressure to physically perform gives Waller the liberty to have fun with fitness. He is training for the Hyrox competition in New York at the end of this month.

Through it all, music continues to be a foundation for Waller’s personal expression.

JRod ensured that “Cadillac Problems" is not about any specific situation, but is more about personal growth. He pointed back to the overall theme that today’s problems are better than yesterday’s.

“Although it has the aspects of love and there are R&B records, our intention with this project is more so to talk about everyday life and it’s more to talk about the problems in a sense that we take for granted,” he said. “These are good problems. Even though they’re problems, but these are good problems in the grand scheme of the world. So that’s kind of the midst of what the project is about in a sense. Yeah, it wasn’t any, we didn’t really pull from like personal. Of course ‘Streets Get Cold’ the concept of the song is like personal in a sense of we just related it to our own journeys, but for the most part, it isn’t anything specific in that realm of like love. It’s really open-ended.”

Watch Darren Waller and JRod's "Mind Games" video

One of the songs that’s about life reflection in general is called “Time Will Tell.” It’s a snappy track that JRod produced, grounded by more piano. On the song, Waller asks, “I can’t help but smile, ‘cause if I ain’t dead by now, I know I still got plenty more/How I’m just 32, feel like I lived 64?/Got to the pros, climbed on out and now we’re switching the goal/Either I’m moving too fast or that car taking too slow/I wish these rappers talk about life instead of just crashing/Imagine if I put that money ahead of my passion/What would my family think of me when they spreading my ashes?”

Emotional trauma in childhood, arrests, his battle with drugs and alcohol, near-death experiences, divorce and an NFL career are all life experiences Waller has already had. Finding himself at a new beginning elicits a range of emotions.

“A lot of people probably don’t experience what I’ve experienced in 32 years, maybe in their whole lifetime. And now, here I am retired and beginning like, okay, who am I really in this thing called life?” he said. “Like a whole new beginning after I’ve lived what feels like a whole life is kinda weird sometimes to sit with. It can be exciting at times. It can be scary at times.”

Even though the fear is real, Waller is trusting that there’s purpose to life after football, especially after processing how he’s gotten this far.

“I’ve never been one of those people that can be like, ‘I hear a booming voice from God’ in moments telling me what to do. But I’m one of those people, I can look back in hindsight and see God’s hands all over everything as to why things were happening,” he reflected. “I could see the ways that He was trying to communicate to me, ‘I know you probably want to stay here and you get a lot of validation and ego hits from football, but I’m done here. I’m trying to get you into something else, what I have next for you.’ And it’s interesting to look back and there’s so many different times where I could just feel it and just being like, man, I can’t keep doing this. I don’t know how long I can do this. 

“I think who I call God, my Higher Power is just trying to get me into position to where it’s like ‘I want to get rid of all the things to where you feel like you’ve had to perform to feel worthy or enough and just get you into a place of life where you can figure out who you want to be and not just move by this path that you accepted as what should be yours when you were a kid that would make you happy.’ It’s like, ‘It’s time for us to create your own path and there’s a lot of things that we need to shed in the process of that.’ Like negative belief systems and old patterns, generations of things that my family has passed down that nobody’s really dealt with that I gotta deal with, things like that. 

“It’s quite an internal journey, but it’s beautiful at the same time. I feel a lot more at peace today and definitely a lot less self-destructive. There’s a lot of patterns and behaviors that weren’t as detrimental to my life as drugs and alcohol that I’ve continued to do that this season of life since retiring has allowed me to just stare in the face and just deal with and start to walk out the other side and just feel more at ease in myself. So just excited for what’s next, but also terrified a little bit. But that’s life. That’s what makes it beautiful.”