The outspoken Chicago MC and poet NONAME began rapping and performing slam poetry in 2010, but she first caught people’s attention beyond her Bronzeville neighborhood when she guested on the track “Lost” on Chance the Rapper’s 2013 mixtape Acid Rap. Her acclaimed 2016 solo debut, Telefone, which took three years to produce, showcased “a potency and urgency in her complicated, spoken word-esque cadences” (Stereogum) that captivated the hip hop world and set her miles apart from this generation of rising talent. Festival appearances this year at Coachella, Sasquatch!, Boston Calling, Electric Forest, and the Pitchfork Music Festival, among others, have the world watching, leading up to her BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! debut.
The night begins with sets from the electrifying, old school funk and soul-loving Brooklyn rapper and singer TOPAZ JONES, who “proved his scholarship by weaving West Coast G-funk with Southern rap flows” (Pitchfork) on his debut Arcade (2016), and JAZZ BELLE, a Harlem outfit with “a sound that’s both unique and intimate, carving out its own space in the NYC expanding alt soul scene.” (The Deli)