It’s almost as if her thoughts are spilling out of her brain and forming a waterfall of words from her mouth. The intro song abruptly breaks into Blaxploitation which has this super playful guitar rift looped over Noname doing triple-time bars.
Just before the song wraps up, she repeats these lyrics after the verse, “my pussy teaching 9th grade English, my pussy wrote a thesis on colonialism and conversation with a marginal system in love with Jesus.” Among her musings, Noname quickly quips, “Y’all really thought a bitch couldn’t rap huh? Maybe this your answer to that.” While you might have missed a few of her statements on the intro track, it’s likely you won’t have missed that little verse, placed in the middle of the song with a notable emphasis on her words. But Noname quickly shows us she ain’t playing this time.
The album rolls itself out as this jazzy, upbeat, unclear picture. The strength behind Noname’s whisper-quiet voice however, has also grown to exude confidence in expressing her opinions while remaining painfully honest with some of her confessions. Room 25 strips away some of the warmth and intimate nature of the instrumentals from Telefone, giving the project more of a polished feel without trimming away too much charm. The sound of someone almost whispering over stripped-back jazzy instrumentals that sound like they were recorded in a bedroom can only go so far. I didn’t think Noname had anywhere to go with her sound after Telefone. This album was a triumph in a little niche genre that Noname seems to have carved out for herself. Don’t you hate it when my year-end lists include things you didn’t see me review all year? Tired of just seeing me rag on mindnumbingly predictable trap albums? Well, like Noname, I’m not perfect, but I’m working on being better.