She Has A Name: Noname

    Noname, previously known as Noname Gypsy, has been making ripples, splashes, currents and tidal waves in the waters of the current rap pool. Her most recent album, Telefone, has been highly praised since its release in late July last year. Boasting immense control over her verse, tone, and imagery, Noname models contemporary life in the portrait she paints with Telefone. Noname historically has been a welcome feature on many tracks by modern heavyweight artists such as the recent three Grammy winner, Chance the Rapper, New York rapper and producer, Kirk Knight, and Chicago wonderkids, Saba and Mick Jenkins. Noname is clearly an artist who’s rising fast and rising now, branching out into solo work with an original sound while carrying courage and knowledge on her back.

    “My devil is only closer when I call him back/ liquor in a limelight/ look her in the limelight/ with fine wine and ecstasy/ you can have the rest of me.”

    “Yesterday,” Noname’s first track on Telefone, foreshadows the liberating introspection and maturity that circulates across the rest of the album. The song highlights Noname’s ability to weave through rhymes with flawless ease. Themes of death, life, love, vice, happiness, and melancholy are the ponderings of Telefone. Noname’s an artist whose intentionallity is clear. She guides her listeners through universal themes but never simplifies them; instead, she forms motifs that feel intimate and personal while also speaking to her larger identities as an African-American woman and as a Chicago artist. Noname is an emerging artist who has a little bit for everyone: vivid descriptions, beautiful composition, timely verse, emotional poignancy, and remarkable talent.

    See the wonderful and luminous Noname accompanied by the up-and-coming artist, CJ Run, at Foellinger Auditorium on Friday, March 31st. Doors open at 7:00 p.m. and the show begins at 8 p.m. Student tickets can be bought at http://bit.ly/2mWjV69 and public tickets at http://bit.ly/2n6tUGl.