Philadelphia rapper Tierra Whack still hasn’t released a full length project since her incredible Whack World dropped in May of 2018. That album, bursting at the seams with 15 distinct artist ideas in as many minutes, was met with immediate critical acclaim. Fans have been starving for more music from Whack ever since. While a follow-up album does not appear to be on the horizon, she did release two new singles during quarantine, Feel Good and Peppers and Onions. Find out more about these tracks below.
Feel Good
Feel Good is very reminiscent of the emcee’s material on Whack World for two crucial reasons. Firstly, the track’s length. This song clocks in at just over a minute, choosing to throw an idea at the listener and almost instantly move on, rather than dwell in the sound. This particular idea is that of failing to feel good, as Tierra Whack wrestles with why she hasn’t been able to attain happiness, despite achieving notoriety and having others look up to her. Her most poignant lyrical encapsulation of the notion comes in the latter half of the song with the bars “It goes happy this, it goes happy that/But somehow I can’t seem to find happy Whack”.
This song also harkens back to her work on Whack World because of her evident vocal versatility throughout the track. She has a knack for seamlessly alternating between a fixed rap cadence and a melodic croon within the confines of a single song. Whack flexes this ability here as she doggedly raps a 12 bar initial verse before singing a hook.
Peppers and Onions
Peppers and Onions will strike listeners as a more traditional song as it features a conventional verse-chorus structure and is nearly three minutes in length. The joyous instrumental on this track immediately fills the audience with a heavenly sense of buoyancy as a mellifluous whistled tune syncs up with driving percussion. Whack’s voice joins the party soon after as she unleashes an infectious chorus about the pressures of reaching the lofty role model status expected of her (“I tried to reach the sun but gum is stuck to my shoes”).
Whack is having so much fun on this track and manages to come off as extremely relatable at the same time with lines like “I’m not perfect, just a person” and “I don’t wanna to be judged, I just wanna to be me”. She also lays down memorable one-liners throughout the song, the hardest-hitting being “Even though we buy chains, we just wanna be free” and “Paparazzi takin’ pictures like I’m in a cage”. If this work is any indication of what extended material from Whack will song like, listeners are in for a future treat.
