Tierra Whack

Tierra Whack Returns With A New Three-Song EP, ‘Rap?’

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Tierra Whack has had an interesting career trajectory so far. After beginning her career as a battle rapper named Dizzle Dizz, she reverted to her real name in 2017 and dropped her high-concept debut album, Whack World, in 2018. Despite a 15-minute runtime consisting of 15 one-minute songs, Whack World became a critical and commercial hit, earning Whack a placement on the 2019 XXL Freshman Class alongside soon-to-be massive stars like Cordae, DaBaby, Gunna, Megan Thee Stallion, Rico Nasty, and Roddy Ricch.

However, since then, her output has been somewhat… let’s just say “sporadic.” After releasing a string of intriguing singles in 2019, she’s restricted new releases mainly to feature verses on other artists’ songs (Willow and Janelle Monae‘s) and singles released as part of brand partnerships like “76” with the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers (her hometown team), “8” from the Madden NFL 22 soundtrack, and “Link” as part of Lego’s Rebuild The World Campaign, as well as a handful of impressive freestyles over past hits like Ludacris’ “Stand Up,” Onyx’s “Last Dayz,” and CJ’s “Whoopty.”

Earlier this week, however, she teased a new EP titled Rap? alluding to the eclectic mashup of styles she’s used on previous releases. The EP, which is apparently meant to commemorate the release of her new Vans collection, dropped today as promised, featuring three tracks: “Meagan Good,” “Millions,” and “Stand Up.” And yes, all three tracks are most certainly fantastic examples of the genre, giving Whack plenty of opportunities to showcase her rap talent.

Watch the video for “Stand Up” above, and check out the other two songs below.

Tierra Whack Announces The New EP ‘Rap?’ Out This Week

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Tierra
Adrian Spinelli

When it dropped in 2018, Tierra Whack’s Whack World took hip-hop by storm. Who was this unknown twenty-something rapper out of Philadelphia presenting this flawlessly produced 15 minute album of 15 one-minute songs with 15 separate unique visuals? It was jaw-dropping stuff and Whack has rightfully soared ever since, her voice gracing collaborations with her hometown Philadelphia 76ers, a powerful Janelle Monáe track, even the Madden 22 soundtrack. There have been a lot of singles released in the past few years, but no official album release since Whack World. Until now.

Announced today, Rap? is an EP from Whack, and she has announced a few shows surrounding the release as well. She’ll be in Brooklyn on the day of the release, December 2nd, and in Los Angeles on December 10th. There’s a third date whose location has yet to be announced, but a hometown show in Philadelphia would make sense.

Whack has also announced her first ever fashion collaboration, with an official Vans sneaker and apparel line — an ’80s style collection that Whack and her stylist Shirley Kurata have helped design. All of the pieces will feature the mantra “Weird Hype And Creative Kids” (as in “WHACK”).

Rap? is out on 12/02. Purchase/pre-save it here.

Tierra Whack Rap?
Tierra Whack

‘Madden NFL 22’ Shares A Massive Music Video For Its Star-Studded Soundtrack

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As a world-famous rapper, Swae Lee is probably used to performing in stadium-sized venues by now. However, that doesn’t stop him from catching a look of awe on his face as he steps on the turf at Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium in the video for “Ball Is Life” from the Madden NFL 22 soundtrack. The same goes for BRS Kash, Moneybagg Yo, Tierra Whack, and the rest of the performers who appear on the game’s hard-hitting playlist.

While the soundtrack itself launched along with the game in August, the EA team released a slew of videos for its standout tracks, including BRS Kash’s “Oh No” performed in his hometown Mercedes Benz Stadium, Moneybagg repping for Memphis in the Titans’ stadium, and Tierra Whack hanging out with Scoop, the Philadelphia Eagles’ mascot. Although Swae Lee actually hails from Tupelo, Mississippi, unfortunately, there’s no team nearby — plus, he lives in LA now anyway.

Each star gets their own video and all of the videos get mashed up in a massive megamix showing off Madden‘s uncanny valley gameplay, which you can watch above. For the individual videos, see below.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Janelle Monáe’s 17-Minute ‘Say Her Name (Hell You Talmbout)’ Features Beyonce, Chloe X Halle, And More

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Janelle Monáe has long used her art to bring attention to issues the world faces, and that’s just what she does on her latest, the 17-minute “Say Her Name (Hell You Talmbout).” The song, released to coincide with International Daughter’s Day on September 26, features the names of women who died at the hands of police brutality: Rekia Boyd, Latasha Walton, Atatiana Jefferson, Kendra James, Priscilla Slater, and many others, over 60 in total.

Monáe recruited a healthy roster of artists to help out with the track: Featured on it are Beyonce, Alicia Keys, Chloe X Halle, Tierra Whack, Brittany Howard, Zoë Kravitz, Prof. Kimberlé Crenshaw, Isis V., Asiahn, Mj Rodriguez, Jovian Zayne, Angela Rye, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Brittany Packnett-Cunningham, and Alicia Garza.

Monáe wrote on Instagram of the song, “We will never forget our SISTERS who have lost their lives to police brutality. Join me, @AAPolicyForum + my sisters this Friday, September 24th in this rally cry as we #SayHerName in honor of #InternationalDaughtersDay.”

As the title suggests, the track is a follow-up to her 2015 single “Hell You Talmbout,” a similarly spirited protest anthem.

Proceeds from the new song will go to The African American Policy Forum (AAPF) and their #SayHerName campaign. On their website, AAPF describes the campaign, “The #SayHerName Campaign is so much more than a hashtag. It is a multi-dimensional campaign centered around the experiences and demonstrated needs of the #SayHerName Mothers Network — mothers, sisters, and families who have lost daughters to police violence.”

Listen to “Say Her Name (Hell You Talmbout)” above.

Tierra Whack Scores A Touchdown On ‘8’ From The ‘Madden 22’ Soundtrack

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Tierra Whack‘s latest track, “8,” constitutes her contribution to the soundtrack of the upcoming 2022 edition of EA’s Madden NFL video game series and finds the Philly rapper going in over a grumbly, buzzing beat produced by frequent collaborator J Melodic. It’s a short but hypnotic track that it’s easy to imagine backing a late-night session of shotgun passes and QB dives. Joining Whack on the soundtrack — which is out now on Interscope — are buzzy artists like 42 Dugg, BRS Kash, JID, Sally Sossa, and Tank And The Bangas.

In addition to popping up here, Whack’s latest mercenary efforts have included a collaboration with Lego on “Link” and with her hometown’s NBA franchise on “76.” While the former found her working with school kids to come up with a cute narrative music video as part of the brand’s Rebuild The World campaign, the latter celebrated the 76ers’ playoff run and had Whack name-checking the team’s players while showing off her own ball skills in the video.

Of course, she’s still had time to build on the impressive body of work she kicked off in 2018 with the attention-grabbing Whack World. As well as showing off her impressive, battle-honed flow on freestyles over “Whoopty,” “Last Dayz,” and “Stand Up,” she recently dropped her own original, house-influenced single “Walk The Beat.” She also celebrated her birthday this week.

Listen to “8” above.

Tierra Whack Shows Off Her Versatility With The Fashion-Forward ‘Walk The Beat’

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On her new song “Walk The Beat,” genre-bending Philadelphia rapper Tierra Whack claims that she’s “versatile, so I can keep switching lanes,” and proves it, wrangling a house-influenced beat that would fit right in at a New York drag ball. Whack’s latest is an ode to “fashion shows, fancy clothes,” which fits right in with her unique sense of style as she name-checks designers like Raf Simons and Rick Owens.

Whack has kept up a trickle of new music in 2021, three years removed from her star-making EP Whack World. The slower pace suits her, as she fiddles with her sound to find the lanes she enjoys the most. In addition to appearing on Willow’s new album Lately I Feel Everything, Whack created a theme song for her hometown 76ers’ playoff run and “linked” with Lego for an imaginative video encouraging kids to embrace their creativity.

And although they don’t technically count as new releases, Whack certainly renewed the buzz around her name with a string of impressive freestyles earlier this year, employing both hip-hop classics like Onyx’s “Last Dayz” and Ludacris’ “Stand Up” and contemporary hits like CJ’s “Whoopty” to show off the dagger-sharp flow that made her one of rap’s most intriguing figures.

Listen to “Walk The Beat” above.

Tierra Whack Shows Love For The Philadelphia 76ers’ Playoff Push In The Patriotic ’76’ Video

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The Philadelphia 76ers are 1-1 with the Atlanta Hawks in the NBA’s Eastern Conference semifinals as the series leaves the City of Brotherly Love and heads down south to The Big Peach. To see them off, though, the 76ers’ Phila Unite campaign tapped one of the city’s rising musical stars in Tierra Whack, who shows her hometown pride with a rap shouting out the team’s members like Joel Embid and Tobias Harris in “76.”

Over a marching band-inspired beat that sounds like Missy Elliott’s “Pass That Dutch” had a baby with an HBCU drumline, Tierra flips the stars’ names with wordplay like “Shake Milton makes millions” and “Doc Rivers layin’ up with winners.” The video sees Tierra watching the Sixers play on an old school box TV set, holding up cardboard cutouts of the players’ heads, and showing off her own hoop skills as she dribbles and shoots a jumper on an invisible hoop.

Whack isn’t the only rapper putting on for her city in the series. Migos’ Quavo attended game 1 in Philly, with his over-the-top reactions capturing Twitter’s attention and either amusing or enraging fans (depending on who they were rooting for). Does that mean we’ll see someone like Meek Mill turn up at State Farm Arena to troll Atlanta fans in the same fashion? Let’s hope so; after last year’s bubble, more fan engagement can only be a good thing.

Watch Tierra Whack’s “76” video above.

Tierra Whack Flies A Lego Rocketship In Her Imaginative ‘Link’ Video

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Despite her battle rap roots, Philly artist Tierra Whack has become better known for her imaginative videos over the past few years, beginning with the colorful Whack World and including clips such as “Dora” and “Unemployed.” As there is perhaps no greater symbol of the limitless power of imagination than Lego, it’s only right that the interlocking blocks feature prominently in her latest video, “Link.”

In the video, she builds one of the most common Lego creations that just about every kid has put together with the blocks, a spaceship, with the help of some colorful, abstract-looking alien friends. She launches the ship to explore space, only to quickly end of missing her friends and attempting to return. Unfortunately, a flaw in her ship’s design — and isn’t there always one of those? — makes getting back even more of an adventure than she expected.

According to a press release, the lighthearted video was shot in partnership with Lego as part of Lego Group’s Rebuild The World Campaign. Schoolkids from Whack’s hometown helped put the video together, from adding their own sound effects to designing rocket and structures in the video. Whack says of working with the kids, “I was so excited to work with kids because their energy is fun, exhilarating, never-ending, and full of surprises. I really trusted them, and I knew they were going to come up with something great.”

Watch Tierra Whack’s “Link” video above.

Hip-Hop Songs That Sample Your Favorite Tracks as a Teenager

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Memories of the good ol’ days. Continue reading…