Noname

If the trenchant US rapper Noname had her fondest wish, this show wouldn’t be just another gig in a corporate rock venue, but a free block party. There would be food trucks, stalls for activist groups and Black-owned businesses, plus free legal weed and somewhere for attenders to donate transformational books written by people of colour to those in jail. This is what happened in Fatimah Warner’s home town of Chicago last year, to celebrate the release of her incendiary and highly personal third album, Sundial, which…

Almost two-and-a-half years ago, we walked around Chicago rapper Noname’s new LA neighborhood with her — at the time she was working to make her next,  highly-anticipated album a revolutionary text with the warmth and intimacy she was already beloved for; radically political, but personal and fun. She’d long named it Factory Baby. Instead, Sundial came as she freed herself from her own constraints. It’s bold and rich but lands naturally at the powerful intersection of her offbeat wordplay, tasteful…

Noname has long held her third album close, but as its August 11 release approaches, she has shared the 11-song tracklist. She posted a spacey graphic on Instagram, with titles like “Black Mirror,” “Potentially the Interlude,” and “Gospel?” Its features include Common, Jay Electronica, Billy Woods, Eryn Allen Kane, Ayoni, $ilkmoney, and Stout.  A week ago, she announced that the album’s first single, “Balloons,” featuring another rather elusive rapper, Jay Electronica, would be released Friday, June 21. In the…