FEATURE:
Revisiting...
Tierra Whack - Whack World
___________
HAVING released…
PHOTO CREDIT: Mary Kang for FADER
three E.P.s last December - Rap?, Pop? and R&B? -, Tierra Whack is announcing herself as a major talent. Each E.P. has its own vibe and sound. The question marks are well-placed and appropriate. Not really committing to genres, they are fascinating works! I want to revisit Tierra Whack’s debut album, Whack World. Maybe not as revered as her recent E.P.s, it is an amazing work. I don’t know if I can call it an album, as it is fifteen minutes in length. The fifteen tracks run in at a minute each. It is more of a mixtape or extended-E.P. However you class it, one should definitely investigate! Before getting to a couple of reviews for Whack World, Whack spoke with FADER. We learn more about the Philadelphia-born rapper’s start and early life. She is a huge talent that is going to go very far:
“Around 9 or 10, she was given a poetry assignment in a reading class and, with that, found the freedom to express herself on her own terms. She committed the poem to memory and presented it to her peers, garnering enough positive feedback in class to go home and ask her mom for a composition book that night. Eventually, the poems that filled the journal would become her first raps after an uncle suggested setting them to beats. "I realized that music was the only thing I really thought about — music and writing. It just all came together,” she says. “For a long time, I couldn't tell somebody how I felt or I couldn't talk about my problems because I felt like I was complaining. Writing would help me or it would be like, I can't tell you how I feel, but I can play you a song."
PHOTO CREDIT: Mary Kang for FADER
After doing a few years in the Philly cypher scene, she got away for a brief two-year stint in Atlanta. She needed respite from feeling boxed in the place she’d always known, and the Southern rap capital allowed her an opportunity to gain perspective and experience varied audiences. She came away feeling like “someone is bound to like [my music], and that's what I care about — that one person." The time also helped her figure out who she was as an artist outside of the influences that made up her foundation. The transition from Dizzle Dizz to her given name, Tierra Whack, signaled a new artistic chapter that would be built around her own impulses. The first glimmers came through a string of experimental loosies made up of warped melodies and lyrical somersaults that she started uploading to Soundcloud in 2015. The only hint of her hometown was the way in which she could play with words and syllables, how she could bend them to her will even behind the distorted effects.
Though none of those tracks would end up on Whack World, they were an opportunity to sharpen her edges to an impeccable point. When it was album time, she knew she wanted to present a snapshot of herself with a visual element. The rest was letting herself fall down rabbit holes: more Dr. Seuss, YouTube, Austin Powers, assorted artbooks. And once inspiration struck, she followed the feeling to its end and then started all over again. The result reflects Whack’s varied interests and a kaleidoscopic idea of what constitutes art or even an album. “It was just a feeling. It felt right to put a collection of songs together. I wanted to do videos, but I was trying to find the right person to work with,” she says of the process. “I got everything I wanted: videos and new music.”
The sudden attention coupled with critical acclaim, which Whack admits doesn’t feel real, is particularly exciting when you consider that neither the art nor the person making it fit into any sort of current trend. Popular and mainstream rap hasn’t championed a darker-skinned woman since Missy Elliot (with whom she shares a creative lineage as well), and Whack seems poised to be the one. It is just as rare that women in rap are celebrated when they steer away from the clichés and club bangers and into something that exists on its own terms, free from the expectations of grand statements or the responsibilities of saving the world. “We can't afford to look dumb," Whack says, and it’s true: Art for art’s sake isn’t a privilege that is usually afforded to those in her position, but words like “usually” mean nothing. She’s making her own rules. "I've noticed [those kinds of patterns] in that world, but I'm living in Whack World”.
I think that Whack World got a lot of attention in 2018, though you do not really see people discussing it now. It got some acclaim, yet many may have overlooked the mixtape/album because it is quite short. The fact Tierra Whack doesn’t like her own voice or would get bored with a full-length song means we get these sketches and ideas. I think they all hang together and there are no weak tracks. Hip Hop DX gave their thoughts on the incredible Whack World:
“Tierra Whack recently released her unconventional debut album, Whack World, a strange journey into the eccentric mind of the burgeoning Philadelphia artist. Before getting into what makes the 15-minute audiovisual project brilliant, let’s talk about the glaring negative.
It’s too damn short.
Each song on the 15-track effort is precisely (and purposely) one-minute long to coincide with 15 Instagram videos that go along with the album. Just when “Hookers” gets going with its infectious R&B groove and unabashed bravado, it’s over.
Simply put, the songs feel unfinished, which is a shame because — and here’s the crazy part — they’re all so good. Even without the video clips, Whack is able to express nearly every emotion a woman can experience in a 24-hour period, backed by a myriad of musical styles.
From the doo-wop stylings and heartbreak vibe of “Silly Sam” to the country twang in the brazen “Fuck Off” anthem, Whack exposes her audience to the multiple characters she’s able to summon from her complex and colorful personality.
Coupled with the inventive visuals, the Whack World experience puts all senses on high alert. For “Bugs Life,” Whack removes her hood to unveil a horribly disfigured face as she asserts, “Yeah/Probably would of blew overnight if I was white/Rap with a mic and wore really baggy tights/It’s aight,” seemingly accepting her slow rise to notoriety.
After all, the former Philly battle rapper known as Dizzle Dizz has been at it since 2011, when she was still a wide-eyed 16-year-old. Her unwavering determination is evident on album opener “Black Nails,” as she raps, “Best believe I’m gon’ sell/If I just be myself. ”
Like the American flag on the moon, Whack World is the 22-year-old’s declaration that she has arrived. Not since Missy Elliott’s “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” has a female rapper/singer captivated her audience with such weird, unbridled innovation.
But instead of a giant, inflatable trash bag-looking ensemble, Whack dons multiple looks for her video collection — she plays a dog groomer in “Flea Market,” boujee badass in “Hungry Hippo,” beret-wearing animal lover mourning her dog’s death in “Pet Cemetery,” balloon-popping maniac in the aforementioned “Fuck Off” and chubby exercise fiend in “Fruit Salad.”
As Whack World begins to come to a close, Whack proves she’s poised for an industry takeover if she plays her cards right, especially on project highlight “Pretty Ugly” when she spits, “It’s about to get ugly, flow so mean I just can’t be polite/Don’t worry ’bout me/I’m doing good, I’m doing great, alright.”
Like many of her peers (Solange, Tyler The Creator, Vince Staples, Mike WiLL Made-It) have already acknowledged, the Whack World of Tierra Whack is one that demands more exploration”.
I am going to finish off with a review from Pitchfork. Gaining acclaim from various sources, Whack World is a stunning debut from a remarkable artist. If you have not heard Whack World, you definitely need to check it out:
“Whack World is a funhouse of minute-long vignettes, teetering between a fantastic dream and an unsettling nightmare. Lyrics share double meanings with the corresponding 15-minute visual Whack released alongside the album, which adds even more dimension and intrigue to the ambitious project; light and dark are forced to coexist. At one point, she snips the strings off of red helium balloons while singing in a comically excessive twang to a potential suitor: “You remind me of my deadbeat dad.” In another bubblegum-backdropped scene, she reveals a half-swollen face and declares: “Probably would’ve blew overnight if I was white.” She’s probably not wrong.
This isn’t Whack’s first foray into the absurd. Last year’s “MUMBO JUMBO” video found her in the midst of a horrifying dentist appointment that could double as a deleted scene from Get Out. On that song, she delivers novocaine-induced, mush-mouthed lyrics over a trap beat that forces you to question whether it even matters what she’s saying. Her point, in part, was that mumbling doesn’t always connote the absence of skill but, on the contrary, can be a valid mode of creative expression. It’s a shrewd suggestion and one that lands well, considering her own lyrical nimbleness, and the way she need not rely on it to make compelling music.
Little arguments and stories like this land all over Whack World. Despite the brevity of the songs (every single one is exactly a minute long), there are no half-baked ideas here; huge revelations are nestled in the frivolous. “4 Wings” masks the sting of death in a carryout order, while “Pet Cemetery” smudges the line between mourning your dog and mourning your dawg. “My dog had a name/Keepin’ his name alive,” she sings over a disarmingly jovial staccato piano, complete with barking puppies in the background and a video that’s just as literal. Elsewhere, on a lighter note, she encourages self-care—eating fruits and veggies, and drinking water—on “Fruit Salad,” while affirming that she cannot be defined nor denied.
Whack World puts forth a portrait of the good and the bad, the weird and the unremarkable, while plowing through insecurities. She uses vanity mirrors to magnify her features on a song titled “Pretty Ugly” and bursts out of a house several sizes too small on “Dr. Seuss,” as if to reflect that feeling of having outgrown your surroundings or other people’s expectations. With the walls closing in, she throws down a bit of wordplay in a helium-infused voice—“Look but don’t touch/I should just be celibate/You the type to sell out/Me? I’m trying to sell a bit”—before pitching into a warped slo-mo like she’s being smothered.
The triumph of Whack World feels that much more important given the music industry’s stubborn refusal to champion diverse portrayals of women in rap outside of hypersexualized stereotypes. There is freedom in the margins, and Whack has crafted a work that beautifully manifests her own vision on her own terms. The result is brilliant—from the length of the songs down to the exaggerated imagery. Though she springs from a rich stylistic lineage, her 60-second confections have few modern precedents. Short songs, while in vogue, serve a different purpose here: Where others stretch small ideas and repetition, thinning them out for easy absorption, Whack uses the time constraint to make her big ideas seem larger than the space they’re allotted. Like an evolution in real time, she gives just enough to complete the thought before she morphs and catapults you to the next one.
Whack World morphs into a clever exercise in economy and using only what you need. It’s a visual album prepackaged for optimum social media consumption; every tiny piece stands on its own without losing sight of the larger picture. At its core, though, Whack’s sense of humor—her captivating depiction of a black woman’s imagination—is an opportunity to celebrate an aspect of art that often goes uncelebrated, an opportunity for Whack to celebrate herself”.
A tremendous work from 2018, I wanted to revisit the amazing Whack World. I am excited to see what comes next for Whack and where her music heads. A stunning and astonish talent who is one of the best artists in the world, Whack World is a…
SUPERB and memorable debut.