Morgan Wallen has his sister, Ashley, to thank for his new collaboration with pop star Tate McRae.
The country star and Canadian singer pair for the shimmering “What I Want,” about two broken hearts who find solace in each other, if only temporarily, on Wallen’s new album, I’m the Problem, which came out Friday (May 16).
“My sister turned me on to Tate and her music a few years ago and I’ve been a fan ever since,” Wallen tells Billboard. “She is a true pop star, a prolific songwriter and is also an extremely underrated vocalist.”
It turns out this duet has been a few years in the making. “We have known each other for a couple years and have been talking about doing a song together if the right one came about,” Wallen continues.
“What I Want” wasn’t originally intended to be a duet, “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,” Wallen says. He co-wrote the track with McRae, Jacob Kasher Hindlin, Ryan Vojtesak, John Byron and Joe Reeves.
Wallen has long wanted to record a duet with a woman, but was being very selective. In a Billboard interview at the end of 2023, the country star said, “I’ve reached out to a couple of people, and they’ve turned me down.” He declined to name names. “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.”
Wallen has released a number of successful collaborations with male artists, including “I Had Some Help,” his massive hit with Post Malone, as well as songs with Eric Church, Chris Stapleton, Florida Georgia Line and rapper Lil Durk. In addition to McRae, the new album also includes duets with Church, HARDY, ERNEST and Post Malone.
Like Wallen’s, McRae’s career is on fire. She earned her first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 earlier this year with So Close To What, which came out Feb. 21. She is on a worldwide Miss Possessive arena tour that comes to the U.S. in August.
