Tierra Whack – ‘Whack World‘
It’s been a year but it’s been a good one. Rarely does such a nuanced visual
album concentrate itself to just 15 minutes. “Whack World” is a conceptual
art piece, a multi-sensory project that hails back to Philly roots. Tierra Whack
is a rapper early in an illustrious career, she’s esteemed with clever rhymes
and uncanny visuals. “Whack World” is a debut project introducing itself as
an instagram-ready album of neat 60 second tracks. This is PR prowess at
it’s best. The most accessible and digestible platform begins with “i” and
ends with “am… I ready for album two?” Whack delivers. The shots are fluid
and inherently connected, the narrative is bizarre but… cohesive. We are
promised a well-lit introduction to a measured vocal and curated audio,
seeing a group of young women eating pearls off a torso adorned with
treasure. We see the lyrics translated to vision; “He likes my diamonds and
my pearl/I said, thank you I designed it”; its a polite surrealism, an ode to
musical subversion. A genre plagued with extended plays and long
introductions, R&B, or at least Whack’s understanding of it, is challenged to
compress itself. We are constantly teased, it’s an iTunes sample that won’t
accept 79p, it’s a demo that has no follow up; and yet it’s a finished piece.
Whack has set the bar high, and I, for one, am ready for what’s to come.
Mette // letters2mette@gmail.com
IORI 