Tierra
Whack
HOMETOWN Philadelphia
SOUNDS LIKE Childlike creativity channeled
into shape-shifting 2019 hip-hop10
ARTISTS
YO U
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56 | Rolling Stone | August 2019
KOURY ANGELON ANYONE ELSE’S HANDS, Tierra
Whack’s Whack World would have
been a gimmick. The 23-year-old Philly
rapper’s 2018 album was made up of
15 one-minute tracks, each distinctive and assured,
despite their bite-size length. The record started as an
experiment, but became a calling card. “It just keeps
growing!” she says of the fan reaction.
The release led to world tours, a friendship with
André 3000 (“He just had his birthday — he’s doing
really good”), and a meet-up with Erykah Badu in Paris
(“That’s my dog — she’s cool as hell”). In June, Whack
finally quit her day job as a doorman at a luxury condo
building. Now, she says she’s ready to move on. “I just
wanted to get people some more music that was longer
than a minute,” she says of the five songs she has
released this year.
Whack is currently back in Philly, working on her
next LP and dreaming up new ideas for her increasingly
ambitious stage show, in which she traverses Nickelo-
deon-by-way-of-psychedelics landscapes. “I’m like, ‘Yo,
I need to give these people an experience — I need to
bring them into my world,’ ” she says. “That’s all I think
about.” BRENDAN KLINKENBERGI