Noname - Chicago personified
It’s been four years since Noname last dropped a full project, let’s go over why her first two albums helped establish her as one of the best Chicago native rappers.
Chicago rapper, Noname-also known as Fatimah Warner-is the most sonically pleasing artist I’ve ever heard. Her two hip-hop projects, Telefone (2016), and Room 25 (2018) became the soundtracks of my life.
Aside from her complex and intellectual lyrics and rhyme patterns, she delivers a sense of nostalgia that I have never been able to get over. Since my aunt moved from Cleveland to Chicago, I was given the opportunity to travel there over the summers and holidays to visit her. Telefone had been released the same summer I drove down the I-90 W route to see my beloved family and admire Chicago’s alluring sunsets for the first time.
The warm, hushed, and inviting instrumentals that sync with Noname’s voice rather than dominating the tracks set the soft, sentimental atmosphere I was in. Telefone was only a 10-track, 33-minute project, but one song, in particular, hit me with a wave of tranquility: Freedom Interlude.
Throughout the entire album, Noname had been essentially described my childhood, my inner thoughts, and life experiences. As a poet myself, I was happy to hear and recognize that slam-poetry-like delivery in her flow, and I was just overwhelmed with enjoyment to find a female artist that knew me inside and out. Freedom Interlude made me realize how in love I was with Chicago’s sound before I even got there.
I was familiar with other Chicago artists such as Common, Chance The Rapper, Smino, Saba, and Kanye West, but no one was on Noname’s level. In the lyrics, she says “what a pretty lady in the valley of the shadows I’m thinking she lost a battle, I’m thinking she found the bottle,” which references her substance abuse. Dark and heavy messages told on upbeat and light-hearted melodies are all across this project and it's one of the many things I admire about her writing style.
For the remainder of my trip to Chicago, I listened to that project on repeat. While exploring the small neighborhoods and the downtown area, everything looked how the album sounded. Chicago is known for the creation of traditional jazz, blues, and rock and roll and you can clearly hear that influence through the “harmonies that sound like New Age doo-wop, carefully orchestrated hand claps and finger snaps of every volume and variety, samples of baby coos, and ubiquitous, shimmering keys.”
However, Noname has stated that she “barely listened to music growing up, aside from the blues and occasional soul that her grandparents played around the house.” She also says that she prefers live music/production since she has a quiet tone, the instrumentation helps her voice fill up that space.
Using an orchestra isn’t the most common thing heard in hip-hop, especially today, but Noname wasn’t going to wait for someone else to tell her when to emulate a certain sound based on its popularity, which I love about her as an artist and person.
Noname is Chicago personified; the jazz influence, the beautiful lyricism, love for her hometown, brutally honest and open, and unpredictable. Her second project Room 25, was just as, if not more powerful than her first album. The track “no name” has a one-minute long intro of beautiful vocal harmonization, and a melodic piano solo before her verse begins, where she talks to the listener as if she were right in front of you.
She shares her experience of moving from Chicago to LA where her “trauma came with the rent” and where she turned 25 years old, an age that helped define who she is. This project is another layer of Noname I wasn’t aware of, exposes herself both as an artist and person with Room 25 and I can’t wait to hear more.
