Tierra Whack

• Whack World [self-released EP, 2018] A
• Rap? [Interscope EP, 2021] **
• World Wide Whack [Interscope, 2024] A-

Consumer Guide Reviews:

Whack World [self-released EP, 2018]
The third commandment of my school of Orthodox Rock Criticism, after "Fuck getting there first" and "Never read the comments," is "Thou shalt not watch the video." We Orthodox stick to music music music. So having concluded after a few streams that these 15 one-minute songs belonged in my permanent collection as songs, I'm reviewing the music here--a burn of the Philadelphia rapper-singsonger's EP, which I DLed from Amazon after determining that it wasn't on Bandcamp. The fragments gain emotional weight as they accrue, so that the second half is more affecting than the jokes, brags, reveries, and interpersonal touches that draw you in, with the turning point the hooky hillbilly stomp "Fuck Off." But the most emotional moment of all is the 15 seconds of wordless, keyboard-brushed cymbal ticks that transition out of Whack's final line: "I know that I am worth mo-o-o-ore." Having figured all this out, however, I decided that professional ethics required me to check the video everybody was raving about on my desktop. And how about that--for once everybody was right. Soon I had it up on the flat-screen for my wife, who'd only liked the EP. The video she loved. "It gave me reason for living," she told me, and we all need those these days. A

Rap? [Interscope EP, 2021]
The way I hear it, three songs/raps/tracks in 8:39 is taking her over-before-it's-done trick a little too far, not far enough, or both ("Millions") **

World Wide Whack [Interscope, 2024]
Cheerfully compulsive 28-year-old Philadelphia-Atlanta rapper-singer-rhymer Whack made her big splash in 2018 with the 13-song but also 13-minute Whack World, where arithmetic whizzes will be less than shocked to learn she ended each of the 13 songs she showcased at precisely 60 seconds flat, an effect that proved disorienting and charming simultaneously. Her timbre soft, her enunciation impeccable anyway, her conversational, too-smart-for-cute flow is so engaged yet also so casual it's like she's hasn't ruled stardom out but is just too pleased with herself now to start getting pushy about it. A-