Years after a stellar feature (Chance the Rapper - "Lost") put her on the radar of many hip-hop fans, Fatima Warner, who raps as Noname, dropped a phenomenal debut project. Telefone featured the Chicago wordsmith delving into innocence, love, youth, and frequently, death. The mixtape was blessed with beautiful hooks, courtesy of other Chi-Town based artists such as Cam O'bi and Ravyn Lenae, and extremely well produced beats with influences from jazz, neo-soul and gospel, but Noname herself was always the highlight. Her intricately constructed and thoughtful lyrics, delivered with a beat-poetry-like flow that fits her soft voice perfectly, made Telefone a standout project of 2016.
After "Lost", Noname fans waited three years for Telefone. In a modern hip-hop climate of yearly releases, instant access and impatient fans, it might as well have been five. The rapper was asked so much about the status of her debut that within the next year, she was on Mick Jenkins' breakthrough mixtape The Water[s] joking about the fact that she still had not released a mixtape ("Telefone never coming out, what's the hold up?/Where you been at? Where the print at?"). Thankfully for those who felt like three years was an eternity, she has only taken two to put out Room 25, and it's worth every second of the wait.
A lot changed for Noname in the years after Telefone. The mixtape brought a huge increase in recognition, a successful tour and a move to L.A. to focus on the creation of her next album. The experiences of her new life are what power Room 25 - moments of self assurance, love, longing, acceptance and critiques of American society. The opener, "Self", has Noname rapping with a hilarious, explicit sense of humor unseen in her past work as she questions those - likely men - who doubted her:
Fucked your rapper homie, now his ass is making better music
My pussy teachin' ninth-grade English
My pussy wrote a thesis on colonialism
In conversation with a marginal system in love with Jesus
And y'all still thought a bitch couldn't rap huh?
A lot changed for Noname in the years after Telefone. The mixtape brought a huge increase in recognition, a successful tour and a move to L.A. to focus on the creation of her next album. The experiences of her new life are what power Room 25 - moments of self assurance, love, longing, acceptance and critiques of American society. The opener, "Self", has Noname rapping with a hilarious, explicit sense of humor unseen in her past work as she questions those - likely men - who doubted her:
Fucked your rapper homie, now his ass is making better music
My pussy teachin' ninth-grade English
My pussy wrote a thesis on colonialism
In conversation with a marginal system in love with Jesus
And y'all still thought a bitch couldn't rap huh?
It's not just the lyrics that draw the listener in though - it's the casual, inviting delivery. There is no doubt that there are years of work behind it, but in the case of how natural it sounds for Noname, one could be forgiven for thinking that she was born with it. She sounds at home over the gorgeous background vocals of "Self."
The production of Room 25, which is handled by the talented Phoelix, takes a considerable amount of influence from jazz and neo-soul, but on "Blaxploitation" things get surprisingly funky. Over an infectious bass-line, Noname speeds through commentary on the horrible socio-political state of America. Taking shots at the current administration ("maybe I'm an insomni-black/Bad sleep triggered by bad government") and how low other politicians have gone with their pandering ("Keep the hot sauce in her purse and she be real, real blacky/Just like a Hillary Clinton, who masqueraded the system"). Towards the end of the track, she aims at the paradox of America - the obsession with and appropriation of black art, combined with a blatant disregard of the humanity of black people ("When we cool, they cool, we die as coon").
Noname covers the ills of her country again on "Prayer Song", which has one of the album's best hooks courtesy of Adam Ness and a particularly unsettling second verse. Over haunting vocals, she raps from the perspective of a corrupt white police officer. The verse begins with an unjustified murder ("seen a cell phone on the dash, could've sworn it's a gun") then digs into the cops psyche. He refers to black boys as "demons" - the murder turns him on. He is a "free man in the land of the noose" and encourages his son to grow up to be the same. While Noname did cover police brutality poignantly on "Casket Pretty", personifying the other side in "Prayer Song" is new, extremely compelling territory for the Chicago emcee.
Noname also reaches new heights production wise on Room 25. Beautiful string arrangements - something completely absent from her previous work - grace both "Window" and "Don't Forget About Me." The former is a passionate song about sex, heartbreak and growth, while on the latter, Noname puts the recent changes of her life into perspective. On "Don't Forget About Me", the effects, on her family life in particular, of her growing fame and move from Chicago to L.A. are in full view. She stresses that even though from the outside it may look like everything is going swimmingly, her insecurities and struggles are still present:
I'm the prayer, the hope, bank account wishin' bone for my loved ones
Tell 'em Noname still don’t got no money
Tell 'em Noname almost passed out drinking
Secret is, she really think it saves lives
The track's gorgeously sad neo-soul production is the perfect setting for the artist to contemplate death and pray that her family remembers her. "Don't Forget About Me" is Noname saying that despite the distance that her budding career has created between her and her loved ones, when it's all said and done, they are who she cares about the most.
In the thirty-five minutes of Room 25, Noname demystifies herself. She's open. She's hurt. She's carefree. She's existential. She's even, by her own admission, problematic. She contains multitudes. While Telefone had the rapper weaving narratives about her Chicago surroundings, it rarely got as overtly personal as "Window", nor as raunchy as her confident strut of a verse in the bossa-nova laden "Montego Bae." After Room 25, it's clear that whatever she does next - whenever she does it - will be deservedly met with huge anticipation. Although she only says it once on the album ("Ace"), and will likely never devote track-after-track to shout it, Noname really is one of the best rappers out.
The production of Room 25, which is handled by the talented Phoelix, takes a considerable amount of influence from jazz and neo-soul, but on "Blaxploitation" things get surprisingly funky. Over an infectious bass-line, Noname speeds through commentary on the horrible socio-political state of America. Taking shots at the current administration ("maybe I'm an insomni-black/Bad sleep triggered by bad government") and how low other politicians have gone with their pandering ("Keep the hot sauce in her purse and she be real, real blacky/Just like a Hillary Clinton, who masqueraded the system"). Towards the end of the track, she aims at the paradox of America - the obsession with and appropriation of black art, combined with a blatant disregard of the humanity of black people ("When we cool, they cool, we die as coon").
Noname covers the ills of her country again on "Prayer Song", which has one of the album's best hooks courtesy of Adam Ness and a particularly unsettling second verse. Over haunting vocals, she raps from the perspective of a corrupt white police officer. The verse begins with an unjustified murder ("seen a cell phone on the dash, could've sworn it's a gun") then digs into the cops psyche. He refers to black boys as "demons" - the murder turns him on. He is a "free man in the land of the noose" and encourages his son to grow up to be the same. While Noname did cover police brutality poignantly on "Casket Pretty", personifying the other side in "Prayer Song" is new, extremely compelling territory for the Chicago emcee.
Noname also reaches new heights production wise on Room 25. Beautiful string arrangements - something completely absent from her previous work - grace both "Window" and "Don't Forget About Me." The former is a passionate song about sex, heartbreak and growth, while on the latter, Noname puts the recent changes of her life into perspective. On "Don't Forget About Me", the effects, on her family life in particular, of her growing fame and move from Chicago to L.A. are in full view. She stresses that even though from the outside it may look like everything is going swimmingly, her insecurities and struggles are still present:
I'm the prayer, the hope, bank account wishin' bone for my loved ones
Tell 'em Noname still don’t got no money
Tell 'em Noname almost passed out drinking
Secret is, she really think it saves lives
The track's gorgeously sad neo-soul production is the perfect setting for the artist to contemplate death and pray that her family remembers her. "Don't Forget About Me" is Noname saying that despite the distance that her budding career has created between her and her loved ones, when it's all said and done, they are who she cares about the most.
In the thirty-five minutes of Room 25, Noname demystifies herself. She's open. She's hurt. She's carefree. She's existential. She's even, by her own admission, problematic. She contains multitudes. While Telefone had the rapper weaving narratives about her Chicago surroundings, it rarely got as overtly personal as "Window", nor as raunchy as her confident strut of a verse in the bossa-nova laden "Montego Bae." After Room 25, it's clear that whatever she does next - whenever she does it - will be deservedly met with huge anticipation. Although she only says it once on the album ("Ace"), and will likely never devote track-after-track to shout it, Noname really is one of the best rappers out.
