Tierra Whack draws us into the strange world of her own making through her visual album Whack World. The Philadelphia based rapper became a known force in the world of hip-hop last October with her video “Mumbo Jumbo,” which Brockhampton’s Kevin Abstract called the best music video of 2017. Through this acclaim, Whack has become as recognized for her visual stories as she is for her recorded tracks.
“Whack World” opens with a surreal nail salon visit, where Whack hides behind an illustrated portrait of herself. Through the minute long moment Whack uses a number of emoji inspired icons to interpret her lyrics. From there, the video moves through fifteen one-minute musical vignettes with jarringly distinct emotional, visual, and musical concepts and character types.
If this is your first introduction to Tierra Whack, you’ll learn a lot from these fifteen self-created worlds; those already familiar with her work will gain a new insight to her multi-faceted musicality.
Singer Brittney Parks (aka Sudan Archives) combines the sounds of electronic music production and with Northeast African folk violin in her latest release. A mix of scenes – the interior of a beauty parlor, choreographed dancers in a parking lot – shows off Parks’ eclectic, creative and colorful lady crew.
Montreal trio Lonely Parade perfectly capture small town summer ennui in a quirky video for their single “Night Cruise.” Awkward eye contact, angular guitars, neon slushee spit, and a hail of crinkle cut french fries work together to somehow ramp up anticipation for the band’s sophomore record The Pits, due in September from Buzz Records (the label that also reps the likes of Weaves and Dilly Dally).
In their latest video, Die Antwoord has opened yet another portal into the mysterious dimensions of their often sinister creativity. With characters straight out of Pan’s Labyrinth and nightmarish lullaby sounds, the video tells the story of an alien outcast who is “misunderstood, lost and confused, looking for a sign” – much like the band themselves, whose outre style has sometimes been compared to performance art.
New Saddle Creek signee Tomberlin wrote her upcoming album At Weddings in her late teens and early twenties, as she began to question her Christian upbringing. Her debut single, “Self-Help,” plays up the anxiety and sadness through its somber lyrics and intermittent guitar feedback, but remains at turns sarcastic and haunting. Shot on film in an aquarium, the video feels equally adfrift – keep an eye out for the full LP August 10th.
