Tierra Whack wants to normalize conversations around financial literacy.
The rapper, originally known as Dizzle Dizz, has teamed up with Venmo for its financial education series, “Money Talks.” The series features a range of artists and entrepreneurs, some of whom are Whack’s peers. Kicking off its second season, Whack sat down with North Philadelphia designer and seamstress Adriana Williams, who works a 9-to-5 while scaling her lifestyle brand.
“We realized, we have so much in common and we had the same struggles,” Whack, a North Philly native, told AFROTECH™. “I really was like enlightened when I was talking to my friends, when we were filming. I’m like, ‘Yo, this is crazy.’ These are friends I talk to almost like at least twice, three times a week. And then we sat in front of the camera and I’m like, ‘Yo, I never knew you were going through this. I didn’t know.’ I don’t know what it is about us, but that’s just kind of like the unspoken thing. Venmo helped us break the ice. I think we just gotta continue to just push forward and have these real conversations ’cause it’ll help all of us in the long run.”
For Whack, it’s about normalizing conversations around financial literacy. Recognizing its significance, she also shares insights into her artistic journey and the financial reality checks she’s encountered along the way.
At just 15 years old, she gained recognition after stepping out of the passenger side of her mother’s car to perform a freestyle in North Philly during a “We Run The Streets” shoot, Fadar reports. The video, shared on YouTube, quickly caught the attention of rappers Meek Mill and A$AP Rocky.
However, Whack’s success was far from instantaneous. The journey to becoming an established artist was a grind. At 17, with her mother’s support in helping her secure a job, Whack focused on saving her earnings to buy a laptop and a microphone.
“This is something I really wanna do. I didn’t really know like how far it would go, where it would take me,” she recalled.
Whack continued to work several other jobs so she could save up to fund her recording efforts. She became a dishwasher, worked at car wash, and later a kitchen until a back injury led her to become a desk secretary.
“I was just hopping around, trying to save up money to support my dream,” she expressed.
Deep in her pursuit, she made one of her earliest mistakes by not proactively saving during this time.
“I just kind of was like, ‘Okay, I got this one goal and all I know is that it requires money.’ So I gotta find me a job and then try to learn how to save, but at first, was just splurging. I’m just like, ‘All right, this is what I want. I’m getting this, I’m getting the laptop. I’m getting the mic. I’m getting all the tools I needed.’ But I didn’t know that you should be putting some money aside each time. I didn’t know that until later on. So it’s like you make mistakes and then you learn from your mistakes,” she said.
Riding the momentum of her success, Whack released her first mixtape, “Whack World,” in 2018. Despite selling out shows, she continued working as a doorwoman, leading a double life much like Disney’s Hannah Montana. With encouragement from her boss, she made the pivotal decision to fully commit to her music career.
“I only worked like a few days out the week. I would have like a sold out show and then still go back to my job just for the discipline… I don’t even really talk about this much, but I had the job when my first project came out. I still was going to work. I would ride my bike to work and I don’t know if it was something about like the routine or something… I was chasing that normalcy too.”
She added, “It was just like, ‘All right, I’m traveling the world. I’ll let it go.’ Then literally my boss was like, ‘Whack, just go, just go…’ She encouraged me. She really did.”
