A few years ago, some Canadian professors created a hitchhiking robot and sent it abroad to study “how people interact with technology.” The ‘bot managed to make 10 days in Germany and three weeks in the Netherlands, but met its gruesome end in Philadelphia.
I don’t know if Tierra Whack had that story in mind when she conceived her oddly bittersweet “Two Night” video with Alex Da Corte, but the comparisons are there if you want to make them. In the CGI-animated video, Whack appears as a massive parade balloon floating over her hometown. However, her presence REALLY seems to irk the City of Brotherly Love, whose citizens go to extreme lengths to bring the balloon down, even going as far as injuring themselves with increasingly dangerous stunts.
The balloon is brought down in flames, and only then do the people seem to realize what they’ve lost, leaving flowers in memoriam at the site of its destruction. The video is unexpectedly moving, and its message is blaringly clear and multilayered without being completely morbid; there are bright spots of hope near the end, suggesting that Whack isn’t quite ready to give up yet, despite the song’s haunting hook.
“Two Night” appears on Tierra Whack’s new album, World Wide Whack, her first ever full-length project and first project overall since 2018’s Whack World. It’s out now via Interscope Records. Get it here.