There can’t be many rappers who namecheck children’s books and TV shows among their most important influences, but Tierra Whack reels them off as if they were hip hop canon: the grinning lunacy of No, David! by David Shannon; the playful, bright and diverse life of Sesame Street; and the psychedelically strange worlds of Dr. Seuss. “I wish I was a kid,” Whack says. “I never wanted to grow up. It really is a trap.” The surrealist humour and childlike energy of these early influences shine through Whack’s music videos, from the nail art puppetry of “Bugs Life”, to a banquet of diamonds and pearls, eaten with chopsticks, in “Hungry Hippos”.

Read “From homelessness to Philly rap sensation, Tierra Whack is the real deal” on Dazed.