Noname - Telefone

Noname
Telefone
2016
Spotify

Sweet, engaging and very talented the debut from Noname Telefone is a look at hip hop that we have not seen before. This record is amazingly intimate but not in a sexual way in an almost voyeuristic sense that we are seeing all of Noname's personality on display. Her insecurities, and her securities for that matter, are right on the surface for you to examine and internalize. We get explicit in rap all the time, but truly revealing? That is a rarity. Being from Chicago it makes sense that her delivery, and inspiration for that matter, comes from Chance the Rapper. She even shares quite a bit of his positivity though she can get in to a self destructive spiral every now and again. The beats on Telefone are light and bright and at times verge on twee, which is something I never thought I would see when it came to hip hop. The beats work well with her content and delivery, but they also are so sweet that the edge she may have in her voice is smoothed out. Something raw is missing and her lyrics just cannot penetrate through the beats to make them transcend. The emotional heart is there, but this is really new territory for hip hop so it may take some people awhile to come around to just how different Noname really is.

There is also an issue where she puts so much tail on her songs that they never seem to end. "Freedom" which is classified as an interlude starts with some rapping then is just the same beat over and over for almost three minutes. Despite the bright sound there is plenty of pain here as well. It is a more personal pain that Noname wants to explore rather than that of the Black experience. Of course those elements factor in to her music, because it is part of her, but that is not the focus of Telefone. On "Forever" Nina Simone comes up for a second time, and Noname really does feel like that same kind of freedom of expression is flowing through her as well. Her music doesn't need your approval, nor that of her peers because this is something that she has to say. Telefone however is just a really great start to what is looking like a special career. This may not be the rap you are used to, but it very well be the rap of the future, only time will tell.

7.5 out of 10