Tiger Goods Brings Out The Best in “Black Joy” and Queer Love
Tiger Goods (She/They) is an independent, black, and queer rapper and singer based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Without fail, you can find Tiger Goods serving, representing, and advocating for every community they are part of. They credit most of their beginnings and current success to being involved with local efforts, underground music scenes, charity events, and more. Musically gifted and sporting stage charisma since age 4, Tiger Goods makes lemons out of lemonade. They channel that positive energy into rhythmic and upbeat music. Whether it’s music you can enjoy at the cookout with family, learning about yourself, or other coming-of-age feelings, there’s something for everybody in Tiger Goods’ discography.
Tiger Goods’ earliest memories of performing started at age 4 in their community’s church. From singing in a choir, the orchestra, and becoming a band geek in later teen years, music has always been an integral part of their life. It’s part of how they describe their sound: “Black Joy.” Meaning a genre and a sound that makes them happy as a black person. From cookouts, Sunday service, Babyface, Whitney Houston, old school stations played by mom, and dad’s Culture Club and fusion obsession. They grew up listening to all genres with influences from techno, house, and rock. They began officially rolling out music in 2019. The themes they’ve written about include self-improvement, hustling, and queer love, being their favorite. Tiger Goods puts passion and intention behind all of their actions and songwriting comes from whatever is on their mind. They are unapologetic in representing queer love and giving back to the community.
Tiger Goods is frequently involved in the music scene in Cincinnati and local acts of service such as drag benefits, church events, and other charities such as Transform Cincinnati. The best advice they can give as a rising artist is to lean into local efforts and showing up for others. Being able to connect face-to-face brings in a deeper, personalized level of relatability that Tiger is proud to experience and share.
They describe themselves as an introverted extrovert with a “golden retriever mask.” Tiger is somewhat of a shy person, and ever the Beyoncé fan, their stage name came from a background of teasing that turned into a catchy name play. “I’ve always been the kind of person that makes lemonade out of lemons,” they say. Growing up being one of the only black folks, Tiger went off to college where tit was the first time they had gone to school with the largest amount of black people they had ever attended with.
“I showed up in like, Vineyard Vines and they're like, “Girl! What are you doing?” and I played basketball in school. And you know, when you play sports, people always make nicknames for people. And because of my eyes and just because I look like I came from a golf course, everybody started calling me Tiger Woods. And eventually I just turned that into Tiger Goods because people kept calling me Tiger. So I was like, I'm going to use this for something because people keep calling on me anyway, so I'm gonna turn it into a positive” they said. Tiger Woods and his name is a legend in itself— they created a newfound baseline to set the tone for their rising growth to what we now know as Tiger Goods.
Tiger Goods’ most popular song is “Mean Girls” with nearly 900,000 Spotify streams which they described writing as a “burn book” moment where they needed their thoughts down on paper and expressed. “It took me maybe 15 minutes to write it,” they say. Tiger Goods strives to capture passions in the present moment, and comes off as a “golden retriever masc” and wanted audiences to understand the feeling of “I feel so bad for you” and “why are girls so mean to you?” from their “cutesy voice.” Tiger Goods confides that they “kind of carve out a monolith of masculinity when it comes to my music because I have a very feminine voice, but I'm not going to sound like me if I do that, I'm not going to sound like that unless I really, really, like, force it and it's not going to sound right.”
Tiger Goods works a 9-to-5 schedule like most folks while balancing a growing music career and financing it all on their own. The artist has had to learn all tricks of the trade whether it's in tax forms, business plans, promotions, marketing, shooting music videos, and more. The road hasn’t been the easiest on Tiger but they take everything in stride, falling on support and a growth mindset. Tiger Goods has the unique ability to take any experience as a learning opportunity. They described the beginning steps as nerve-wracking in the beginning but with time other ventures and opportunities flowed in. They’ve found great collaborators and connections along the way, and performed live at various shows! Including Blacklite Party, on August 12th, 2022 in Cincinnati.
Tiger’s most recent release is “BUSY” out NOW. Detailing the motions and thoughts of balancing one too many things on their plate, the feeling of exhaustion, but the need to survive as well. Tiger Goods portrayal of the human experience in a queer and black space is nothing but authentic, reflective, and uplifting for the soul. Be sure to stream their music on all platforms and follow their social networks.
