I first heard Chicago rapper Noname’s poetic, spoken-word style raps on Chance the Rapper’s track “Lost” off of 2013’s “Acid Rap.” Her calming (“I make lullaby raps”) voice, complex, syllable heavy rhymes and relatable lyrics struck me—and many others—immediately.
After crawling through YouTube and Soundcloud for her tracks, many—including myself—became hungry for more, but Noname (who rarely accepts interviews and shys from social media) was nowhere to be found. Besides appearances on others’ albums, such as Chance’s “Coloring Book,” Mick Jenkins’ “The Waters” and Kirk Knight’s “Late Knight Special,” Noname released little music to satisfy the new audience that had come to enjoy her laid-back, cozy raps.
In 2016 though, Noname came through with “Telefone,” a beautiful, bouncy album that showed Fatimah Warner finding her place in a tumultuous world, moving from childhood nostalgia such as on “Diddy Bop,” to “Casket Pretty,” a dark track that tackles a summer of death and police brutality in Chicago. The album brought Noname mainstream recognition, and her music became a symbol of Chicago’s close-knit rap scene.
On “Room 25,” Noname’s sophomore studio-album, the biting wit and multiple-syllable rhymes of Telefone are still there, but the lullaby style raps have faded for more confident, assured bars. Noname raps openly and boasts about her abilities and her sexual awakening and shows the complete and welcome control of her place in the patriarchal rap world. On opener “Self,” she raps with unadulterated conviction, “Fucked your rapper homie, now his ass is making better music.”
This new confidence might be a surprise to longer-term listeners, but it shows a complete sense of control for Noname, who in “Room 25” bleeds more introspectively, focusing not only on the formation of a new-found sexual freedom, but as well on macabre reflections on mortality and existential dread.
The album isn’t just dark patterns, though. On “Montego Bae,” Noname trades lines about a hypothetical Caribbean relationship with Ravyn Lenae over a sunny, bubbly beat that sounds something like 21st century Bossa Nova—pure beach music.
On “Blaxploitation,” Noname sheds any shyness in her persona by firing off bar after bar of fast, politically tinged lines (“I’m struggling to simmer down, maybe I’m an insomni-black / Bad sleep triggered by bad government”) fitting the name—a reference to the film genre of the 1970s—and the driving, rhythmic base that propels the track.
Entirely produced by Phoelix, whose neo-soul, jazzy beats have become as much part of Noname’s appeal as her lyrics, collaborations on the album are light, focusing on fellow Chicago collaborators (and Noname regulars) Smino, Saba and Ravyn Lenae. Noname, who herself became known from a superb guest verse, returns the favor in featuring Benjamin Earl Turner, a new talent out of Chicago who provides a tight, immersive verse on “Part of Me.”
The topics of dealing with death, black life in America and Chicago and the anxiety of your twenties is not new territory for Noname, but she sounds more confident in her words, more confident in her ability and voice. Wherein on “Telefone,” Noname was shyly inviting the world to peek at her inner thoughts, “Room 25” finds her presenting them up-front to an audience fully interested in what she has to say.
“Room 25” is out now on all streaming platforms.
