Noname Addresses “Song 33”: ‘I Am Not Proud of Myself for Responding’
Written by SOURCE on June 21, 2020
It appears that Noname has some regrets about releasing “Song 33.”
The rapper took to Twitter on Sunday, writing, “i’ve been thinking a lot about it and i am not proud of myself for responding with song 33. i tried to use it as a moment to draw attention back to the issues i care about but i didn’t have to respond. my ego got the best of me. i apologize for any further distraction this caused.”
She continued in a second tweet, “madlib killed that beat and i see there’s a lot of people that resonate with the words so i’m leaving it up but i’ll be donating my portion of the songs earnings to various mutual aid funds. black radical unity.”
Noname released the song earlier this week as a response to J. Cole’s surprise single “Snow on tha Bluff,” which addressed a number of issues, including racism, activism, social media, police violence, and more.
The two rappers clashed after Noname called out top-billed artists for remaining silent in a now-deleted tweet. “Poor black folks all over the country are putting their bodies on the line in protest for our collective safety and y’all favorite top selling rappers not even willing to put a tweet up,” she wrote. “n***as whole discographies be about black plight and they no where to be found.”
Cole clearly took offense, as it’s been noted that acts like him and Kendrick Lamar—whose work underscores systemic injustices and the black experience—have been quiet on social media, as protests continue to take place across the U.S.
After Cole released his divisive track on Tuesday, he took to Twitter the next day to respond to the song’s criticism and directly shout-out Noname. “I stand behind every word of the song that dropped last night,” he wrote. He also said that he loves and honors Noname, whom he sees as a “leader in these times.”
Noname responded to Cole on the Madlib-produced track “Song 33,” where she enumerated the issues that Cole could have chosen to rap about instead of her, including the death of 19-year-old activist Oluwatoyin Salau, the murders of multiple trans women, abolishing the police, and more.
