VOGUE WORLD

Tierra Whack

“This is me every time I get a chance to rock out. I’m always gonna pop.”

Last year, North Philadelphia’s Tierra Whack unleashed her experimental EP Whack World to much acclaim. The radical record not only cemented her fast and furious rapping prowess, but her expertly curated aesthetics, offering a trippy, surrealist music video for each of the album’s 15 tracks. And as she took the stage Saturday evening, it became all the more clear that disruptive beauty is an essential part of the equation. Her onyx lengths slicked taut in a serpentine, knee-grazing ponytail accented with flaxen twine at the base, the updo deftly highlighted her graphic Day-Glo gaze. A nod to the past, Whack’s delicate face paint and topographic dashes of vivid eye paint are inspired by a vintage photo of ’60s model and singer Marsha Hunt. “I had this picture I found of her on Instagram saved for a while,” she explains. “I was up at 4 o’clock in the morning and showed my makeup artist. I’m like, ‘Yo, I gotta do it. Today’s the day.’”