Earlier this afternoon, Noname released “Song 33”, her official response to Jermaine Cole’s “Snow on tha Bluff”, a song that is remarkably worse than the film I assume it’s named after. However, the rebuttal is surprising in that it doesn’t even address Cole directly; rather it examines our current political moment and begs the question we’ve all been asking: why would J.Cole even make such a song in the first place? The song is produced by Madlib (from now on we will refer to all future collaborations between them as Nolib), the first such connection between the two artists, and one that works incredibly well.
In the last 24 hours, Mr. Jermaine Coleslaw inexplicably decided to sub (and later @) Noname in a misguided critique of Black revolutionary action and intellectualism. In this ill conceived moment, J. Cole-Powered-Energy came out as anti reading (?), and upon the inevitable wave of harsh criticism, stated he meant no ill will nor was trying to bash women who speak up. After all, what kind of misogynist calls women “queens?” Noname, on the other hand, handled herself with grace, ignored the bullshit, and continued to tangibly do good activist work, fighting to educate others and raise money and awareness for various nationwide causes advocating for Black life and safety.
But all that other bullshit is here today and gone tomorrow.
Nobody’s tryna cancel J. Cole. But when you do dumb shit, say dumb shit, double down on said dumb shit, all while going at one of the 15 rappers in the game who can and will out-rap you, you reap what you sow. Tough break, nigga.
At just over a minute, the song is short, sweet, and to the point–we don’t have time to be doing this. Moral of the story: read some books, y’all.
Listen to Song 33: https://ffm.to/song33
Read our review of Noname’s Room 25 here
Support Jalil Muntaqim’s (Anthony Bottom #77A4283) Medical Parole and Commutation of his sentence here