Photo Credit: Chantal Anderson<\/p>\n
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By Jonny Malyon<\/p>\n
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Noname hit the music scene strongly with her debut album <\/span>Telefone<\/span><\/i> in 2016. Since then, Noname has continued putting out great music and amassed quite a following.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I saw her in concert on her tour for <\/span>Room 25<\/span><\/i> and loved following her singles, activism posts on social media, and brief beef with J. Cole. However, when I first listened to <\/span>Sundial<\/span><\/i>, I knew something had changed. Watching her recent Tiny Desk Concert from NPR and then attending this show only confirmed that for me. Noname has always been great, but it seems clear to me that she has recently come into her own in a powerful way and is beginning to firmly cement herself as one of THE Greats.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I walked into the venue during STOUT\u2019s set and immediately knew I was in for a good night. Only STOUT and her drummer were on stage, but the energy was overflowing. As the song came to a climactic close, STOUT tore her bright pink wig off in what felt like a celebration of life, music, and beauty.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n After a brief interlude, Noname\u2019s band entered the stage and started playing. Cisco Swank played a double stack of keyboards, Kamilah and Claudia Abena covered vocals, and Kamilla handled the triggering of some loops as well. Brooke Skye played a beautiful six-string bass, and Greg Paul was on the drums.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n After a brief instrumental opening, Noname emerged and began her first track, \u201cblack mirror\u201d, an apt opening as it is also the opening track of <\/span>Sundial<\/span><\/i>. The song ended strong with an emphatic \u201cshe a rapper too\u201d and if it wasn\u2019t apparent previously, everyone knew we were in for a treat.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n After a quick \u201cShout out J. Cole, he loves this song,\u201d Noname jumped right into \u201cSong 33\u201d. She continued rather quickly through her set, taking short breaks to get us to all yell \u201cFuck Billionaires!\u201d before she played Rainforest and had us calmly say \u201cI\u2019m enjoying myself\u201d together.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0Her set spanned her career, including tracks from all three of her albums, biased towards <\/span>Sundial<\/span><\/i> of course, with singles from over the years sprinkled in as well. During \u201cnamesake\u201d, the band dropped out and the crowd joined Noname for an acapella, culminating in a joint scream \u201cI ain\u2019t fucking with the NFL or Jay-Z.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n As a musician myself, one of my favorite aspects of the show was how deliberate Noname was in giving props to her band. Every band member was given time to shine. Skye played a Thundercat-esque interlude that led into \u201cnamesake\u201d, both Claudia and Kamilah took scat solos during \u201cboomboom\u201d, along with singing various choruses throughout the set, and Swank took a keys solo during \u201cpotentially interlude\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n While Paul didn\u2019t have a specific drum solo, he threatened to steal the show for me. His drumming was incredible throughout the night. He has outstanding chops, technicality, and feel. If it wasn\u2019t for Noname\u2019s bars, I could have gotten lost in Paul\u2019s playing all night.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The band shoutouts, along with STOUT\u2019s reemergence to sing the chorus on \u201cgospel?\u201d, a group effort acapella of diddy bop as part of her brief encore, and a collective \u201cFREE PALESTINE\u201d added to the community feel of the show that made this show what it was.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Noname cares deeply. That is so evident in the way she carries herself, makes music, and performs. She is invested in her community and strives to expand that community in a very genuine way. Towards the end of her set, she asked everyone to be quiet and very sincerely thanked us all for being there.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n A few days ago, she posted on Instagram her gratitude for the support on this tour and how she has the funds for another album because of it. While interacting with the crowd she commented, \u201cI can see you, it\u2019s okay to make eye contact, we\u2019re just people.\u201d That love and connection was real, not in an overbearing way, but in a deeply human way.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n This community that Noname is building is possible because of how grounded she is. She knows her abilities and isn’t afraid to call out abusers of power in society, even fellow rappers who might have more of a following than her. Noname\u2019s authenticity stands out in a world of social media, re-posting stories, and co-opting opinions.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0Her insane technicality and lyrical ability have never been in question. Pair that with her reinvigorated messages of community, dismantling power structures, and humanity, and if she continues on her current trajectory, I might be inclined to agree with her when she ends \u201cgospel?\u201d with a slight chuckle and \u201cI\u2019m the best rapper alive, it\u2019s not even a contest.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Photo Credit: Chantal Anderson By Jonny Malyon Noname hit the music scene strongly with her debut album Telefone in 2016. Since then, Noname has continued putting out great music and amassed quite a following.\u00a0 I saw her in concert on her tour for Room 25 and loved following her singles, activism posts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22960,"featured_media":39725,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1525,1523,15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39724"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22960"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39724"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39729,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39724\/revisions\/39729"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}