#191: Tierra Whack

This week on A Waste of Time with ItsTheReal, we welcome the amazingly talented rapper/singer/filmmaker/storyteller Tierra Whack to the Upper West Side! Tierra, in her first extended interview, go into depth on growing up in Philadelphia with her mother and two younger siblings, auditioning to get into an arts high school an hour away, her profecientcy for singing and visual arts, how much her principal hated hip-hop, the genesis of Dizzle Dizz, meeting Meek Mill, and how she ended up on Cosmic Kev's radio show, freestyling for fourteen minutes. We discuss her family's big move to Atlanta in the middle of high school, working at a car wash alongside a team of former convicts, making crazy amounts of cash by cleaning cars for 2 Chainz, Rocko, Future and barely missing Andre 3000, attending a high school that was "ratchet as fuck," slowly finding her real rap persona via ciphers, and honing in on her sound by herself on her laptop. We get into her return to Philly, now using her given name, not caring what any critics had to say, washing dishes at a restaurant to get by, doing intimate shows at tiny venues, scouring Vimeo to find the perfect cinematographer to compliment her music, putting out dynamic music videos, and the reaction to her 15-minute opus, Whack World. Tierra talks surprises, Human Centipede 2, Flying Lotus, Melanie Martinez, not putting stickers on laptops, seeing herself on billboards, when she figured out she was creative, her rules on social media promotion, taking in all the success, going right on to the next project, and so much more!