Noname Readies New Single, “Balloons,” Her First in Two Years

Just days before her performance at MIKE’s Young World 3 Festival in Brooklyn, Noname is back with some “Balloons.” The upcoming single, which features elusive rhyme-sayer Jay Electronica and R&B musician Eryn Allen Kane, is Noname’s first in two years, following “Rainforest.” Electronica last released dual albums A Written Testimony (which extensively featured JAY-Z) and Act II: The Patents of Nobility (The Turn) in 2020. Kane appears on three songs from Killer Mike’s new album, Michael, including the single “Scientists & Engineers.”

Prior to “Rainforest,” in 2020, the poet and rapper, born Fatimah Nyeema Warner, released a scathing diss track aimed at J. Cole, who criticized Warner on “Snow on the Bluff.” Warner would later tell Rolling Stone that her and the Dreamville Records co-founder had spoken to each other just days before “Snow on the Bluff” dropped.

“We’ve had each other’s numbers for a few years and we’d text little shit, but my friend came up with this idea to have artists sign this open letter to the industry that [said] we were going to refuse to perform at venues or spaces that hire police,” Warner said at the time.

In the same year, Warner scrapped her planned third album Factory Baby, to focus on organizing the Radical Hood Library in Los Angeles. The artist’s Noname Book Club is held monthly in select cities nationwide.

“Balloons” will likely be on the Chicago native’s third album Sundial, which she announced in April. Sundial, which is expected to release this month, serves as a follow-up to Warner’s 2018 LP Room 25, which featured Ravyn Lenae, Smino, Saba, Phoelix and more.