Noname at Fine Line, Minneapolis (22 Nov 2023)

Chicago rapper Noname finally made it to the Fine Line on November 22, 2023. The rapper was originally listed to appear in October 15, but it was slightly delayed a month later.



This is Noname’s first tour in five years, having blown up in 2018 with the debut LP Room 25. The record was named one of the top albums of the 2010.



Opening the show was Connecticut’s Stout (aka Thee Stout). Her first album Awakened landed at #11 on the Billboard gospel charts, and since then Stout has been exploring gospel, jazz, rock, hip-hop, funk, and even alternative gunge music, such as her cover of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (which she played on her live set).



She’s got powerful vocals and even asked the sound mixer to lower her volume to let us enjoy the show. Her goal is to heal the world, so she’s preaching stomping on negativity, stomping on self-hate, on self-doubt.



Highlight of her set was going into the crowd and started a mosh pit for an energetic fun show.



It’s been quite a long tour for Noname, in support of the highly anticipated new album, Sundial. After moving around a few dates for logistic reasons and scheduling conflicts, she’s finally in town… but jokingly asked, “where am I right now? Minneapolis?” and got the audience hyped with the mentioning of their hometown.



She’s joined on stage with a backup band and two backup singers, Camillia and Claudia, which she gave a standing ovation later in the set.



Her controversial song “Namesake”, namedropped Jay-Z and the Roc Nation partnership with the National Football League. The rapper is no stranger to these topics in her other songs (often tackling political and social issues, gun violence, capitalism, police state, etc.)



For “Gospel?”, a song featuring $ilkMoney, billy woods, and STOUT, so, of course, Stout came on stage to sing on the song.



Noname’s Sundial is out now.