In 2018, earlier than it was potential to inform six-hour sagas over the course of a number of 10 minute TikToks, social media’s foremost mirco-video app was Instagram. Instagram movies might solely be a minute lengthy again then, and Tierra Whack made expanse from this limitation in Whack World, a surreal and glossy music movie that ran quarter-hour lengthy, stringing collectively 15 music movies for 15 songs that have been every simply 60 seconds. It was genius and it was heralded as such, launching Whack’s profession as a nicely revered rapper.
Within the crevices of Whack World’s cartoonish video units and songs have been contemplations on dying which have coloured bits of her work ever since. “Pet Cemetery” wasn’t only a tune a few useless canine, however one a few slain pal; “4 Wings” wasn’t nearly a favourite meal they shared, however her life with out him. She tallied a lifetime of losses on “Heaven,” and homed in on her grandparents’ dying on “Reducing Onions,” each songs from a trilogy of EPs she launched in 2021. Now, her debut full-length album, World Broad Whack, is anchored in her personal mortality. The one “27 Membership” obtained straight to the purpose. “I can present you the way it feels,” she begins earlier than itemizing numerous isolations. “It ain’t actually laborious to persuade you/Lookin’ for somethin’ to decide to?,” she asks earlier than bellowing “Suicide” with the complete, unglamorous drive of a center faculty theatre child.
A latest interview with Vulture revealed this was not an suave allegory. “I deliberate to finish my life at 27,” she mentioned. “I’m 28 now, so I made it by way of. I’m figuring it out.” One of many issues that makes World Broad Whack such a powerful feat, cementing her distinct fame as an artisan, is that she fleshes out the darkish corners of her inside life whereas sustaining the technicolor impishness that’s been her hallmark. At a time when it usually looks like artists can break by way of with barebones music and personas, Whack walks the tightrope between minimalism and maximalism with out wobbling.
Within the run as much as the album, Whack disseminated a playbill to followers and colleagues that spells out an idea that additionally emerges within the vibrant movies for “Bathe Music” and “27 Membership,” and a funhouse web site she designed that mirrors an early 2000s youngsters’ recreation: World Broad Whack is a tragic clown character whose visible world Whack constructed out with artist Alex Da Corte. They’ve pulled collectively a slate of references – Yoruba traditions, American pop artwork, Black American extraction – to relate her countless loop of ambition, struggling, and survival. However you don’t must know all these references to really feel one thing: the imagery surrounding the album is melodramatic, however her rapping inside it’s something however.
Tierra Whack’s early identification got here from freestyling, and World Broad Whack maintains the sort of curt, jabby anecdotes that will come off the dome, whether or not she wrote them first or not. “The satan supplied a deal/ Bitch, I simply signed for a mil,” she croons on “Temper Swing.” “How’d I make it this far/Lengthy sleeves cowl scars,” she says on “Numb.” “And he actually harm my emotions,” she gives plainly on “Imaginary Pals.” “After I develop up I wish to cling from a ceiling.” A barrage of couplets like these fuse collectively into simple chapters within the story; waking up, dressing up, cooking up, getting her hopes up, and giving up.
Her rap model and World Broad Whack’s buoyant manufacturing ensure its heavy themes don’t weigh it down; as a substitute, the beats construct her character. The twilight R&B of “Temper Swing” provides it maturity, the songs’ splashy, tittering excessive hats reimagined on a tune referred to as “Burning Brains” the place she looks as if her personal worst enemy. The sound of stately R&B returns on “Moovies,” underscoring a grown-up seek for love within the type of a fantastic date, hoping some salvation will come of it. The militant drums of “Ms Behave” increase Whack’s stakes early on, much more than her warning, “Watch who you name your foes, watch who you name your folks.”
She inhabits every sonic setting with assorted vocal textures, too–a gooey, nasal droll within the childlike “Imaginary Pals,” barely parted lips within the torpid “Numb,” and her unconvinced droning of “You possibly can’t let it get you down/All of us obtained points” in “Troublesome” (a tune that actually repeats “dwelling is troublesome”). All collectively, these approaches make World Broad Whack perversely enjoyable, a disorienting merry-go-round of despair and uplift, quite than a linear path to victory or failure. Tierra Whack didn’t finish issues at 27, and neither does her album. “That is the essence [of] the report: the cycle is what Whack goes by way of in a day, and he or she’ll do it once more tomorrow,” her playbill says, leaving room – actually, expectation – that dwelling stays troublesome however doesn’t kill her, even when it comes shut.
