Whether it’s the warped seascape of “Body Of Water,” or her breakout visual project Whack World, celebrated Philly artist Tierra Whack knows how to grab your attention with eye-popping visuals.
On her new single — her first original song since her 2021 EP trilogy Rap?, Pop?, and R&B? — Whack keeps it minimal but no less intriguing. “Chanel Pit” is set in a car wash, with Whack in a white jumpsuit, gliding up and down the center track, getting scrubbed with brushes as a kalimba melody and big bass-y beats soundtrack her bizarre rhymes about scents and sensory overload in a mosh pit.
As The Fader notes, the song is the first taste of the album Whack will release in early 2024, and she told Apple Music 1’s Zane Lowe that, despite the non-sequiter rhymes, “Chanel Pit” is quite literal: a friend was at a concert, there was a mosh pit, and he picked up on the smell of Whack’s perfume. “I don’t know if it was an Earl Sweatshirt concert or something. It was something. But everybody’s like, moshing going crazy. And he was like, I was walking, he was like, ‘I smell Whack. She’s here.’ Then he made his way backstage and he found me, and he was like, ‘Yo.’ That always just stuck in my head.”
Watch the video below, and keep an eye out for the Hulu documentary Cypher, which Pitchfork reports Whack will be the subject of. It drops November 24th.