Noname Live in Portland

Chicago rapper and poet Noname brings her blend of hip-hop and spoken word to Portland. Raised in Bronzeville and first widely heard on Chance the Rapper's Acid Rap, she has since built a catalog of introspective, socially aware music across the mixtape Telefone and the album Room 25. As one third of the supergroup Ghetto Sage, she shares stages with rappers Smino and Saba, and her live sets are known for their subdued delivery and complicated, nearly spoken-word cadences. Her lyrics trace black women's pain, Chicago's gentrifying neighborhoods, and the everyday struggles of growing up in the city. She also runs the Noname Book Club, a project centered on radical texts by authors of color, a literary focus that carries into her stage presence.

Audiences can expect a performance that feels intimate and considered, matching the understated style of her recorded work. Noname came up through slam poetry and Chicago's YOUMedia youth arts program, and that roots-in-poetry approach gives her shows a conversational, direct quality. For fans of thoughtful hip-hop, her Portland set offers a chance to see a rapper who treats the stage as an extension of her writing.