Noname

Born Fatimah Warner in Chicago's Bronzeville neighborhood, Noname frequented open-mike nights and slam poetry competitions when she wasn't volunteering with the local YOUMedia arts program. Her audience began to widen in 2013, the year she appeared on Mick Jenkins' Trees & Truths and Chance the Rapper's Acid Rap. After she guested on Jenkins' The Waters, Donnie Trumpet & the Social Experiment's Surf, Chance the Rapper's Coloring Book, and Jamila Woods' HEAVN, among other releases, she made her proper debut in July 2016 with the self-issued Telefone. Three years in the making, its reflective coming-of-age tales featured productions from a strictly Chicagoan cast of Cam O'bi, Phoelix, Saba, and Monte Booker. The mixtape landed in year-end lists from numerous publications, and Coloring Book shortly thereafter won a Grammy Award for Best Rap Album, consequently increasing anticipation for Noname's follow-up project. Recorded during a month long period following touring and a move to Los Angeles, the comparatively expansive Room 25 -- with Phoelix the lone production collaborator -- arrived in September 2018. Source

Song 33

I saw a demon on my shoulder, it's lookin' like patriarchy

Like scrubbin' blood off the ceiling and bleachin' another carpet

How my house get haunted?

Why Toyin body don't embody all the life she wanted?

A baby, just nineteen

I know I dream all black

I seen her everything, immortalizin' tweets all caps

They say they found her dead

One girl missin', another one go missin'

One girl missin', another

But niggas in the back quiet as a church mouse

Basement studio when duty calls to get the verse out

I guess the ego hurt now

It's time to go to work, wow, look at him go

He really 'bout to write about me when the world is in smokes?

When it's people in trees?

When George was beggin' for his mother, saying he couldn't breathe

You thought to write about me?

One girl missin', another one go missin'

One girl missin', another one

Yo, but little did I know all my readin' would be a bother

It's trans women bein' murdered and this is all he can offer?

And this is all y'all receive?

Distracting from the convo with organizers

They talkin' abolishin' the police

And this the new world order

We democratizin' Amazon, we burn down borders

This a new vanguard, this a new vanguard

I'm the new vanguard

Published:

2020

Length:

Regular

Literary Movements:

Rap & Hip Hop

Anthology Years:

2021

Themes: