Tierra Whack is a twenty three year old female Philly rapper. Though her career is in its infancy, she is definitely not inexperienced in the music game. Whack wrote poetry when she was younger and attended an Arts academy before she graduated high school. At age fifteen, she appeared in a We Run the Streets (Philly underground music collective) freestyle rap video. After the video, she released several tracks under the name “Dizzle Dizz”, including the song “Dizzy Rascvls”. Within months following her first release, Whack struggled with depression, and her mom moved them out of Philly to finish high school in Atlanta. After finishing school, she reconnected with Kenete Simms, a music producer she collaborated with as a teenager, and signed with Interscope Records.
In October 2017, Whack released a hip-hop single with music video, “Mumbo Jumbo”, where she wore a mouth prop while rapping and most of the lyrics are purposefully unintelligible.
In 2018, Whack released her debut album, Whack World. Whack World was praised for it’s unusual format — 15 tracks, each exactly 1 minute long. Whack released each track with an accompanying short film to Instagram. This multimedia project received widespread critical acclaim and recognition. She also toured with 6LACK.
Whack has already reached a point in producing music where she’s gotten bored of rapping. Since February 19, 2019, Whack is releasing one single per week. So far she has released five singles; “Only Child”, “CLONES”, “Gloria”, “Wasteland”, and “Unemployed”. The other songs have a playful beat and sing-songy lyrics, but “Unemployed” was one of the most recent released songs that brings rap back into her music.
When asked about why she made “Unemployed,” Whack replied:
“Rap got boring to me for a long time so I just started singing more, but it was one of those days where I was home recording in Philly and I was just like, ‘Yo, can you give me the beat?'” the Philly resident explained of the tune’s origin. “Then it was just like just hitting and I was just like, ‘You know what? People think I can’t rap anymore.’ I’m like, ‘I’ve just got to rap. I’ve got to rap.'”
Tierra Whack has us wondering what she’ll do next. Will these singles be singles, or part of a larger project? Will there be more rapping or is that just something she wanted to prove? Are anymore videos coming out? Stay tuned and keep an eye out for the rest of #whackhistorymonth!
“Unemployed” can be found on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, and Soundcloud.
Spotify link:
https://open.spotify.com/album/4wT85WYKlyU9XZddZAffSq?si=GqG3RBKiQ2-pnUOKWkwGKQ
