Tierra Whack is making her own world (even if she’s still figuring out how to live in this one)

View this email online March 23, 2024 Support this newsletter for a chance to win. As part of the team that works to make Tiny Desk concerts possible, I'm excited to invite you to participate in our first Tiny Desk giveaway! Until March 28, your donation supporting the NPR Network can also enter you for a chance at a once-in-a-lifetime trip to see a Tiny Desk concert in person. You’ll even have the option to grab some unique Tiny Desk swag when you enter. Show your support today for your chance to win! — Stephen Thompson, NPR Music Alex Da Corte by Rodney Carmichael Tierra Whack almost lost her life the day her debut album dropped.  Alone in her hotel room last Friday, she found herself down on her knees, rolling over, gagging on the floor. The culprit: a potato chip. “I woke up this morning and then I rolled over on a bag of chips and it was some salt and vinegar chips,” she told me in an interview we taped later that day. “I have my one eye open, so I put a salt and vinegar chip in my mouth and then I started choking.” Even in the midst of our sobering conversation about the self-doubt and suicidal thoughts that plagued her during the making of her new LP, World Wide Whack, she couldn’t help but filter that morning’s incident through her dark, humorous lens. “I almost died on the day my album came out, and I was like, ‘How cool would that be?’” Now, just a few hours later, she was laughing about it. “I don't take anything serious. It's like I do, but I don't. We're not getting out alive.” This week, my colleague Ann Powers is letting me take the wheel so I can sing the praises of the artist I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing more than any other during my tenure at NPR Music. I met Tierra Whack for the first time at South By Southwest in 2018, just a couple months before her mind-blowing visual EP, Whack World, took the music world by the neck. It was brash, bold, visionary. While rap/R&B was becoming the most-consumed genre, Whack seemed less interested in serving the masses than serving up her own bizarre sensibilities. With 15 tracks spanning a 15-minute EP, Whack totally reimagined the popular song. She got more than her 15-minute share of fame, too. So much so that she started to question everything she thought she knew about herself. The work trickled out over the next several years — a LEGO brand partnership and music video here; a trio of three-song EPs there — but inside she struggled to tell a different story. Until now.  Her full-length LP, World Wide Whack, offers up a decidedly darker worldview, one in which she takes things beyond her signature point of absurdity to reveal the personal anguish she’s lived through. For that reason, it’s her bravest artistic statement yet. Before talking to Whack about this new project, she’d already done an initial round of press. As she rehashed the trauma associated with nearly ending her life, it was obvious that she was opening a lot of fresh wounds. Part of me wanted to approach the interview less as a music writer and more as a human. I wanted to avoid triggering her further, but I also wanted to hear how she came to see the value in sharing her fragile state of mind. She plops us down on the therapy couch beside her with songs like “Difficult,” “Two Night” and especially “27 Club.” So, in this conversation, we spoke, like two humans, about what drove her to the brink and back, to a place where she’s learning to see her imperfections as a thing of beauty – despite the tragicomedy of it all.  Below, you can read an excerpt from that conversation, but if you want to listen to the entire interview – which I’d strongly suggest if only to hear her warble the unintelligible hook of her awesome song “Burning Brains – we’ve got the full audio online for you.  Rodney Carmichael: When did you know that the mood of this album was gonna be deeper, darker and different than anything you've done in the past? Tierra Whack: A long time. Every day I would go to the studio. I would only make sad music. It was so depressing. Like, I'm tired of my own self. And then I took a break from the studio. And that's when I really started putting in that time to just figure out what is going on with me. So that was the therapy. I started working out, exercising, just all of these new things that I had never done before. I'm just like, I just need to find some inspiration somewhere. I was just trying to figure it out. I keep going to the studio and I'm making the same stuff. I don't want to continue on making sad music. That's not who I am. I was ready to get up out of that darkness. What was the first song you made that let you know you were headed in the right direction? I think it was “Difficult.” Yeah, “Difficult.” I love that song. I remember the feeling of like, Okay, yeah, this is cool. People need to hear this. We all suffer, and we go through things, but we got to keep pushing. And, like you said, don't we all fake it? Yeah, we all do. But we have to sometimes believe. We’ve got to trick ourselves into believing, and then actually believe.  Do you ever run out of ideas, Tierra? Or do you have the opposite problem where you’re constantly flooded with them? No, I run out. I'm human. I run out. They get dry for me, man. And that's when I go outside and I go play and find new things to do and try, and then I go back and I have something to talk about. That's why I'm so proud of this. I'm not ashamed of this project or anything that I've done at all because I wouldn't have anything to talk about if I didn't go through these things. And as an artist, this is what we live to do. Give our truth. How many songs did you make that didn't make the album? Get out of here. It's like 300 songs. Are you serious?  I have a lot of music. And so many songs, they'll never get to see the light of day.  Do you have a Prince vault? Yes, I do. A Whack vault. And they won't see the light of day because … why? Because they're not good songs. I don't make hits. Like, it's not a hit factory. I mean, I think a lot of people would disagree with that, but … Nah, come on now. And that's the thing, too. I'm not delusional or anything. I know I'm not perfect. And that's the thing. This album, I'm promoting imperfection. It's okay to not be okay. It's fine, you know. Newsletter continues after sponsor message More weekend reads (and watches): NPR Music’s own Sheldon Pearce mines the parallels between two rappers typically written off as polar opposites, with his dual review of new LPs from Chief Keef and MIKE – both of whom prize creative freedom over the attention economy. Vulture’s Craig Jenkins weighs in on the hot debate of the week to ponder if nothing will ever be the same between rap’s Big Three after Kendrick Lamar spit flames at Drake and J. Cole:  If you only watch one thing this weekend, make it the Soul Glo Tiny Desk. It’s the first time the Desk plays host to a hardcore punk band and it’s every bit as cathartic and cacophonous as you’d imagine.  Laura Snapes’ review of Waxahatchee’s new album for NPR Music is fresh off the digital presses. She says Tigers Blood is ushering in the anti-eras era, thank the gods.  Win a trip to see a Tiny Desk Concert! Between now and March 28,  you could win a trip for two to see a live Tiny Desk Concert at the NPR Offices in DC when you support the NPR Network here. You’ll even have the option to grab exclusive Tiny Desk swag as you enter - all while supporting the honest journalism you rely on. Show your support today for your chance at this once-in-a-lifetime experience! Enter Now + Show Your Support No purchase or donation required for entry. Void where otherwise restricted or prohibited by law. Must be 18 years or older to enter and a resident of the 50 US states, D.C., or Canada (except Quebec) to enter. Entry deadline is March 28, 2024, at 11:59:59PM PT. Odds depend on the number of entries received. ARV of total prize: $2,300. Max. 10,000 entries per person. Official rules, including an alternative free method of entry, can be found here. Listen to your local NPR station. 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