February 19, 2019
Sthanlee B. Mirador/SIPA USA
Tierra Whack, pictured here at the 2019 Billboard Power 100 Awards.
Tierra Whack, the 23-year-old Philly rapper who received a Grammy nomination for her 2018 debut album, has released a new single.
The new song, “Only Child”, was released Feb. 19, just nine days after she showed up on the red carpet with a local fashion statement at the Grammy Awards.
Listen to the new song below:
“Only Child” is the first song Whack has released since last May’s ‘Whack World’, an audio-visual album accompanied with a 15-minute short film. It’s also the first song she’s officially released that's longer than one minute; her debut album last year was a collection of one-minute songs.
So this new single is a pretty big moment for Whack’s career, in that it’s both her first statement since a landmark debut, and a structural departure from the way she presented that debut.
Ultimately, though, Whack navigates the uncharted waters with the same dexterity she displayed on “Whack World”.
The production this time around is aqueous and clear-eyed. She throws a handful of jabs at an ex-lover, including the particularly East Coast line “You done turned my heart so cold, I should work at Friendly’s”, which is fantastic.
Whack also rips President Donald Trump and touches on feminism in the same sentence, and delivers a perfectly balanced chorus that’ll remain in your head long after the track is over.
Unsurprisingly, it’s a triumphant return from an artist who seems to be in total control of her powers.
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