And although it’s not Noname’s (or any black person’s, in all honesty) responsibility to educate others, she provides great resources to do so.Ĭole doesn’t have a right to gaslight his peer, especially if she is trying to be a force for black solidarity. The positive attention her platform has received recently is teaching her fans the truth about the extensive history of black discrimination. Not because she isn’t hyper-sexualising herself for male consumption and boasting about her money, men and frivolous things: it’s because, being nameless, she makes you care about her message more than her lifestyle. Noname has been, and will always be, one of the truest representations of black women in rap. And by this, we meant not to put them in harm’s way, whether it’s physically, mentally or digitally. In the past two weeks, black Twitter has been pleading for black men to take care of their own. At least fellow Chicagoan Chance The Rapper has stood up for her. Cole, who is deemed to be one of the best rappers ever, there’s a danger that his extensive fan base will simply disregard any slander towards him and throw it back in Noname’s face. The one flaw to Twitter is its cancel culture, which is ready to get rid of you if you do the smallest thing wrong. Noname’s attempt to educate rap fans – globally – may now be tainted by his criticism. He perpetuates ‘the angry black woman’ trope, making it seem that she’s “mad at my n****s”, “mad at our ignorance”, and “mad at the celebrities”.
His criticism of Noname’s vocal resistance to injustice dilutes her genuine anger, making her seem less than credible. Yet this doesn’t change the fact that his song undermined Noname and the power of her knowledge, making it seem that not talking at all (as he’s done) is better than her attempt at activism. When there was an online backlash against ‘Snow on Tha Bluff’, Cole rowed back from the track, praised Noname and claimed: “I haven’t done a lot of reading and I don’t feel well equipped as a leader in these times.” Many cowered behind the excuse of needing to educate themselves before they spoke out in solidarity with the BLM movement. And all of this while feeling that she and a few others are doing all the leg work to help fans understand the struggles of the black people – who birthed hip-hop and other elements of black culture they enjoy.
In addition, she’s been using her worldwide reach to highlight current injustices still practiced today.
#Snow on tha bluff review full#
With quarantine and the resurgence of Black Lives Matter, she’s restocked her online book club – whereby titles and ideas are exchanged in Twitter – to ensure it’s full of insightful tales about race, gender and other factors in POC’s adversity. So instead of being overlooked by her rapping peers and performing for predominantly white crowds because she doesn’t “want to dance on a stage for white people”, she’s gone on a musical hiatus and used the time to help educate her fans. Probably one of the most political rappers of a generation, Noname is still sick of the racial inequality black people have to face. Relaying her ‘hood blues over jazzy, pixelated instrumentals, tracks such as ‘Yesterday’ ( “ Check my Twitter page for something holier than black death ”) and ‘Casket Pretty’ ( “Badges and pistols rejoice in the night / And we watch the news, and we see him die tonight”) tell the world that police brutality and hate crimes are not a sporadic thing. She has always stood up for what she’s believed in, whether she’s educating her fans on topics such as sexual liberation or simply uplifting her fellow black peers.įor a great example of this, look no further than her 2016 debut, ‘Telefone’, where her skippy flows mimic the paranoia a Chicagoan may experience while living in one of the most dangerous cities in the world. Which brings us to the Bronzeville, Chicago rapper and poet Noname. We’ve seen many public and out-of-the-box thinkers speaking up against racial injustice directed at the black community, including actors Keke Palmer and John Boyega, who have risked their careers to speak out against black adversity, as well as being advocates for the changes needed because it’s 2020 and the world is tired of inequality. Twitter is, right now, brilliantly political – all kinds of revolutions are taking place online, including the essential #blacklivesmatter.
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