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Noname is on the phone, taking a break from prepping for her first headlining tour, which comes to NYC this week. “Right now I am just trying not to stress out and overthink it. I’m just concerned that the show, as we have been rehearsing it, is tight.”
Though the Chicago MC born Fatimah Warner played NYC in the fall and has more shows booked, including a set at Panorama Music Festival in the summer, this tour is the first time many fans will be able to soak in her debut mixtape, Telefone, live. That project, which arrived in July, had its own highly anticipated wait, coming three years after Warner’s captivating, soft-spoken guest verse on Chance the Rapper’s mixtape Acid Rap. Telefone delivers on the promise of that early work, weaving jazzy, gospel-influenced music with image-rich reflections on lonely cigarettes, childhood blocks and interactions with death and love. On record, she’s disarmingly open, unafraid to wander off or acknowledge uncertainty. “In the studio it’s like my own world where I can be as vulnerable as I want to be,” she says.
Onstage though, Warner plays off her live band and the fans’ response, which, along with the record’s critical love, has been huge. “Twitter, Facebook message—every platform they can contact me on, they do. They really seem to enjoy the project, which makes me happy. I’m glad that my experiences can relate to someone else’s. That’s the whole purpose of me making art.”
Noname plays Le Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker St (lpr.com). Thursday, March 2 at 8pm; $15.