It's extremely cool to watch when boundary-pushing artists decline to water themselves down when they go on late night TV to entertain middle America. Lizzo did it (twerking in disco ball cosplay on Fallon) and last night Tierra Whack stayed true to her absurd, cartoonish self on Jimmy Kimmel Live!
As her late night debut, Whack performed her recent single "Only Child" and Whack World track "Hungry Hippo" outfitted in a stunning red two piece ensemble decorated with plush monsters, lips and eyeballs. She opened the show pushing a blue monster-baby across the stage in a stroller, in front of a stage set evoking a deserted suburban park. While she paced the smoky swing set, rapping about how only children are trash (truth), more multi-limbed balloon monsters drifted eerily around her.
It's a fitting familiar-surreal concept for her gloomy, bizarre, vivid rap — which intermittently lures you out of reality, then plunges you back into it, pouring ice cold buckets of loneliness and bleak observations on your head. The whole get-up was a little reminiscent of MGMT's iconically monstrous "Kids" video. For the brief vignette of "Hungry Hippo," she got the whole audience's hands in the air, singing and grooving in front of a screen showing a fierce game of Hungry Hippo.
Enjoy the incredible clips below.
Photo via BFA