NEWS
The wait for Noname’s third studio album, the highly anticipated follow-up to 2018’s Room 25, has been extended indefinitely as the Chicago rapper grapples with creative blocks and a lack of genuine connection with producers.
On a since-expired Instagram story post, Noname said: “Most days I’m not sure if I’ll ever make music again. The last time I was consistently making songs was four years ago. It’s been so hard to find producers to link up with and who I genuinely connect with sonically. I’m truly grateful for the art I was able to release but that might be it from me.”
A representative for Noname did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone’s request for comment.
“No lie, this shit actually makes me incredibly sad and I rarely leave the crib these days,” she continued on Instagram. “I don’t want to keep lying and saying there’s an album on the way when there’s not.”
Earlier this year, the rapper told Rolling Stone that her third studio album Factory Baby was in its early stages, but could be finished within two months with the right level of focus. She had been working on it with producer DJ Dahi (Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Big Sean) and creating what she referred to as “Noname music,” which made sense of the lived experiences she’s had between releases.
“I think I’m always just kind of living with it,” she had said. “I live, live, live for years and then I come back, and I vomit.” She’s released scattered singles since Room 25, including the candid “Rainforest” shared in February, but the only consistent stream of creative output has come from her book club. The Noname Book Club meets monthly for conversations around two texts by writers of color who reckon with inequity.
“I’m like, ‘If I made a fire album and I still kept doing the same thing where I’m not putting out personal merch and I’m driving all of my fans to go purchase book-club merch, we would just be able to raise more money and do more things,’” she said. The book club has formed 12 local chapters in Boston, Phoenix and London. Noname doesn’t seem to be done creating, or sparking radical and introspective conversations — it just might not be in the format expected of her.
NEWS
Supergrass are teasing an upcoming announcement with fans, according to a new post.
The British band, fronted by Gaz Coombes, shared a cryptic new post across their social media channels this morning (September 13), suggesting to fans that a new announcement is on the way.
Posted at 9am BST, the post simply shared artwork of the band’s logo in red, alongside next Monday’s date, September 16. In the caption, the band simply wrote: “Sign up now”, alongside a link to their website’s homepage.
Upon clicking the link, the page prompts fans to sign up for future updates, and asks them to input both their email address and the country they live in. Check out the post below.
While details on the announcement remain sparse, the post has already caught fans’ attention, with some speculating that the news could be around the upcoming 30th anniversary of their debut album, ‘I Should Coco’.
Released in May 1995, the release marked the record that first put the band on the map, and contained singles ‘Mansize Rooster’, ‘Caught By The Fuzz, ‘Lose It’ and ‘Lenny’. It also saw Coombes and Co. nominated at the 1995 Mercury Prize, and contained what would soon become their biggest track to date, the Ivor-Novello winning ‘Alright’.
At time of writing, the band haven’t shared any further indication as to whether the announcement is related to the huge upcoming milestone – whether it be an anniversary tour or reissue – nor whether it has anything to do with new music that could be on the way.
The band’s last studio album was ‘Diamond Hoo Ha’, which arrived in 2008. Since then, they have shared remastered versions of both their 1999 self-titled album and their 2003 record ‘Life On Other Planets’.
In other news around the band, last year it was reported that the band’s frontman joined Johnny Marr onstage last month to perform The Smiths‘ classic ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ at Lakefest 2023.
Before then, Coombes opened up about how “nervous” he was about reuniting Supergrass following the success of his solo albums.
Supergrass split up in 2010 but reunited for a series of live shows in 2019. They released a live album in 2020, Live On Other Planets, to celebrate their 25th anniversary and raise money for grassroots venues affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Having got into a flow and the last two albums having done so well, it seemed a bit odd, like a backward step,” he said. “But then I was confident that I could operate both things together and it seems that I did, because I was obviously writing this record mainly during the reunion so I feel like I made best use of both things.”
Coombes’ fourth solo album, ‘Turn The Car Around’, came out in January of last year.
