COURTESY: TORI WHODAT
“I don’t need any more dissonance in this sea of disapproval,” Tori WhoDat rapped in her 2012 song “Homecoming.”
Listening to the record in a rented burgundy Honda sedan parked outside a furniture store, the pint-sized rapper nods her head to the military-inspired snare drum cadence from which the beat derives. Even on this dark Memphis night, the bib of her black snapback cap bounces back and forth like a metronome in the glow of the store light. She grins from time to time. It’s hard to tell if her sudden smiles are due to the embarrassment of revisiting a less-polished version of her artistic efforts or an emotional response to the heartfelt lyricism of the particular recording. This song, much like the boxes that fill the seats of the car she’s sitting in, represents a transition in Tori’s life.
“It’s a letter to my parents that somehow just happened to rhyme once I got it all down,” she says of the track. When it first appeared near the end of her debut mixtape, “Tori Story,” the young rapper was going through a host of big changes. The Louisiana native, who spent most of her teenage years in Chicago, had just moved back to the South. Coming to Memphis meant turning her back on a career in the gospel rap that gave WhoDat, then known as Victorious, an opportunity to travel the nation with an Indiana-based label. The decision even halted WhoDat’s plans to attend seminary.
After two years outside the studio, Tori returned to the mic with a more candid approach.
“It was just a really confusing and scary time,” WhoDat said. “Even now, it’s still something I’m figuring out; finding out where my faith lies in regards to my sexuality.”
In the lines of songs like “Homecoming” and “Who Am I?” Tori expresses through rhyme her struggle to settle into an identity. On the latter, she emerges triumphant, with driving synths laid behind her vocals.
“I will stand tall,” WhoDat proclaims in the second verse. “Come and take a trip to where my heart is.”
Looking back, she reiterates, “It’s still something I’m figuring out.”
“I had been with two girls before I could even admit to myself I was gay,” WhoDat said. “When I finally was able to say, ‘Okay. I’m gay. This is what I am,’ I just cried.”
While Tori takes a break outside in her car just after sound check at Memphis’s Lounge 11, she’s also taking a break from moving into a new house. For the time being, her rental car, the boxes inside and her girlfriend, Erin, are Tori’s only semblance of home. In just a couple of hours she is going to open for Wave Chappelle, the token hipster of local superstar Yo Gotti’s CMG rap label.
During her impromptu listening session, a group of stand-out fans arrive. Aside from obvious physical attributes, such as skin tone and dress, many of the members of this small enclave appear to relate first hand to Tori’s message about sexual identity. Some of them approach the car, and Tori hops out to greet them with daps and hugs.
Tori nicknamed her fans “Dat Krewe,” a reference to the parade committees from her hometown, New Orleans. Their mantra of “Love, Positivity and Progression” fits neatly within the theme of Tori’s music and her supporters’ position in the venue, sprinkled throughout the crowd of hardcore rap aficionados.
“People get upset, you know, other artists on the bill,” WhoDat said, not because of the eclectic crowd she attracts, but just how loyal they are to her. “People would walk in for my set and then literally walk out right afterward. I think it’s more so of a testament to the fact that I can reach those people who normally wouldn’t come out to see shows like that.”
For audience members who aren’t well-acquainted with Tori’s content, another large draw is her penchant for initiating crowd participation and frequent bursts of energy and has little aversion to throwing herself off stage to crowd surf. In the opening for Rae Sremmurd last October at the Lyric Oxford, she rode the adoring arms of Mississippi rap fans before continuing her amped anthem “Krewedentials” once she was placed back on the ground.
“I get consumed by the song and connecting with the people in the audience,” she said. “I like to look people in the eyes. I’m not really worried about forgetting my lines.”
On this particular night, WhoDat is performing through a toe injury, only noticeable due to a slight limp in her step, as she moves about Lounge 11 in her signature white tennis shoes. Luckily, her swagger disguises her altered movement. She isn’t worried, either.
“When I start performing, I don’t feel any pain at all,” she says.
Tori attributes her on-stage demeanor to be simply a facet of her personality.
“I don’t like to do things unless I’m going to do it with all my heart,” she said.
She also has borrowed a sense of determination from her father, one of her biggest role models, who always told her, “You never know when an opportunity could be ‘the’ opportunity.”
It seemed as if “the” opportunity for Tori was right around the corner. For the second year in a row, Tori WhoDat was scheduled to appear at the 101.9 FM Kiss Concert on April 18 at the New Daisy in Memphis. Her most recent single, “Love the Way,” debuted on the station as they announced this year’s headliners for the event. Her family gathered around for the announcement, after which her mother offered the rapper, “You sound just like your father.”
“That made me smile,” she said.
Alongside Tori WhoDat, Flo-Rida, Wyclef Jean, SoMo and The Voice’s Melanie Martinez were headlining the event. However, due to a recent cancellation, Tori is headed back to the drawing board, to find a way to capitalize off her recent success.
“Now I’m in this new phase where there is so much that is brand new, and I’m excited to make feel-good music,” WhoDat said. “I just want to show people all sides of me.”
