A Rapper Has Noname
It’s the spring of 2013. Another college semester is coming to a close. Norman Music Festival came and went. At this time I’m 23 and still addicted to cigarettes. I’m a baker at an international restaurant chain, a local musician in several musical projects that would all eventually fade away, struggling to make ends meet, and like most hip-hop heads, I’m digging through the digital crates of Soundcloud and Datpiff. At the suggestion of a friend, I download Chicago emcee Chance the Rapper’s latest mixtape Acid Rap.
The mixtape immediately takes hold of me like a dose of LSD straight to the head. I find myself relating to the themes of psychedelic drug use, the highs and lows of relationships, the nostalgia of yesteryear’s favorite Nickelodeon shows, and not looking too stoned when grandma comes around. On this mixtape we find a variety of Chicago’s newest talent. A new generation of musicians, rappers, poets, producers, but most importantly, a young emcee with a whispery flow that maneuvers around the ears like Misty Copeland. Her name is Fatimah Werner aka No Name Gypsy.
Another year goes by. Mixtape after mixtape drops. Kanye West is slowly slipping into the sunken place. I’m still stuck on cigarettes. America is currently reaching a new peak in racial discourse and I can’t seem to find any more music from the unknown, nameless emcee. Her catalogue’s limited to only a single collaboration. Then one fateful day, a friend turns on Mick Jenkins’ 2014 mixtape, The Waters. There, I hear that No Name Gypsy is to release her debut mixtape Telefone.
On Telefone, Noname sans gypsy, they team up with fellow Chicagoans Saba, Phoelix, and Las Vegas producer Cam O’bi to create a multilayered sonic landscape. Heavy instrumental jazz compositions, neo soul production and conversational raps full of optimism with a blunt sense of reality. Tracks like “Diddy Bop” give us an insight on Noname’s Chicago upbringing. Summertime fun listening to R&B boyband, B2K, (enjoying) the irresponsible tendencies of ones adolescent years, while simultaneously being aware that one should be back in the house before the street lights come on.
On “Casket Pretty”, Noname takes on the darker themes of violence and death. During this time in Chicago young black women and men fall victim to gun violence at an alarming rate. She hopes for safe travels for her friends as they head home from a night on the town, and that their telephones won’t light up from a phone call with the bad news that another friend or cousin was found victim to gun violence. With “Freedom Interlude” Noname shows great promise as an artist. She moves between categories and themes, as if she’s locked into a stream of consciousness. She allows every idea to exist freely. Hip hop was headed in a new direction. A new class of Chicago hip hop was emerging and Noname was at the forefront.
Noname got her start in Chicago speaking at open-mic nights and competing in a slam poetry contest by the title No Name Gypsy. There she would meet other Chicago artists like Saba, Chance the Rapper, and Mick Jenkins. From 2010-2015, she contributed to a handful of mixtapes before seeking collaboration for her own debut mixtape. It was with former members of Chicago neo soul band Woo Park, previous collaborators Saba, Phoelix, and Cam O’bi that Noname would embark on her journey to complete Room 25.
During the years between Telefone and Room 25, like most on social media in the millennial generation, a sense of personal responsibility in one’s actions and words became more important. Some may call it virtue signaling, others call it being woke, but for me, I call it growth. During the two projects, Noname had learned of the negative history attached to the term gypsy. After doing some research and reflection on the type of artist she’d wished to be, she dropped the gypsy moniker and chose Noname as her singular stage name. With this new change I believe Noname embraced the greater meaning behind her nameless title. In a rare interview with the music magazine The Fader, she mentions that the name allowed room for creativity that would not be limited to any one category or medium within artistic expression. Noname needs not for labels to exist, but more for the freedom to exist and express herself freely.
After the release of Room 25 in 2018, Noname made her way around the mainstream circuit. The album is receiving critical acclaim, putting her in the spotlight as one of the best and brightest artists of today. One performance in particular on The Tonight Show with Stephen Colbert stood out to me. Noname and crew came out the gate with a jolting drum n bass hyperactive intensity. The song is “Blaxploitation”. In juxtaposition to the film-genre, “Blaxploitation” speaks to black stereotypes and the dangers within those stereotypes. Noname and crew explore how black individuals exist in a society with these stereotypes—the physical toll a black person takes when their surroundings expect them to act in a manner that is wildly unrealistic. They counter this almost immediately with a free jazz break before switching the instrumental to a quasi J Dilla groove. This time the themes get even more dense. The song is “Prayer Song.” Noname takes aim at the United States of America, reflecting on the gentrification of her hometown Chicago, questioning her own move to Inglewood, California, and the police shooting of Philando Castile in 2016. Then again, almost like clockwork, the band again takes over with another free jazz exploration before hitting the next song. All the while Noname takes small quick steps across the stage. Lyrics heavier than the heaviest hip hop giants leave her lips, somehow floating lighter than a feather. The flow feels relaxed, unbothered, a breathe of fresh air. She showers her backup singers with blessings from her fingertips, and the audience stays enamored with hip hop’s brightest star. This rapper with no name. She closes out her medley with the soulquarian era-D’angelo inspired song, ”Don’t Forget About Me.” There she raps of her mother’s cancer treatment and fears that her family could forget about her while she is away in California.
This performance puts Noname in the same class as the Kendrick Lamars and Frank Ocean. Artists who don’t fall prey to the hedonistic, hyper-masculine themes that often plague what we see in mainstream hip hop. But like many women in hip hop, Noname has taken her sexuality to places once unheard of in hip hop. Bars like “…my pussy teaching ninth grade English my pussy wrote a thesis on colonialism…” from the track “Self,” show that Noname is all together in a league her own.