Noname - Room 25
Critic Score
Based on 16 reviews
2018 Ratings: #9 / 890
Year End Rank: #15
User Score
2018 Rank: #44
Liked by 289 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

100
NME

‘Room 25’ is not only smartly constructed and laced with intricate subtlety – it’s laugh-out-loud funny, too.

100
A.V. Club

From beginning to end, Room 25 is a testimony to the power of telling your story and the hope that can be found in doing so without apology

91
Consequence of Sound

The pleasure of Room 25 is in hearing a master wordsmith turn words into feelings so that the feelings linger long after the words have stopped.

90
Tiny Mix Tapes

Its 11 songs leave us wanting more. But brevity is one of her greatest assets on the album; as a snapshot of Fatimah Warner’s artistic individuality, Room accomplishes everything it needs to, allowing Warner to say her piece without stumbling into indulgence or, worse yet, running out of subjects to rap about.

90
PopMatters

Noname's Room 25 is vintage neo-soul and future rap hand in hand; a soulful sanctuary for those turned off by the austerity of mainstream mumble rap.

90
AllMusic

The immaculately crafted Room 25 is highly mature and immensely enjoyable. Simply remarkable.

90
Highsnobiety

The coming-of-age angst we found on 2016’s Telefone, has matured, as the 26-year-old embraces agency over her voice, lyrical prowess, and womanhood.

86
Pitchfork
The Chicago rapper’s second album is a transcendent coming-of-age tale built around cosmic jazz and neo-soul, delivered by a woman deeply invested in her interiority and that of the world around her.
86
HipHopDX
Noname overwhelmingly succeeds in telling her coming-of-age story where she removes all emotional layers to explore everything from comical socio-political ideology to sexuality minus self-serving preachiness.
80
Clash

Even if the delivery is often delicate, the record’s deft lyricism is arresting and unflinching.

80
God Is in the TV

On Room 25, Noname reveals herself to be a formidable force with her heartfelt delivery and always-gripping conversational style. Her immense talent as a rapper is shown in her clever and biting word-play on this moving and incredibly charming release.

80
The Needle Drop

Noname's music has only gotten even more gorgeous and charming since her breakthrough mixtape Telefone.

80
FLOOD Magazine

Room 25 finds a more mature Noname than the one she introduced on her 2016 mixtape Telefone—wiser, more reflective, and maybe a bit more cynical, too.

79
GIGsoup
Thanks to her earnest performance style, juggled beautifully with some of the sharpest poetry you’ll hear in rap this year, Noname is one of hip hop’s most necessary voices, and ‘Room 25’ is her dampened megaphone.
70
Exclaim!

If Noname has one glaring weakness, it's a tendency to ramble without ever seeing the need to switch up her rat-tat-tat triplet flow. She does, though, have the rumpled, mellower-than-thou swagger to pull it off, and why complain when Room 25 is the prettiest rap record to come along in months?

70
XLR8R
If “Prayer Song” and “Blaxploitation” are anything to go by, she could yet become a great rapper. For now, she’s a good one.
knewnie
100

noname saves lives

Milosummers
98

This is the debut album Chicago born artist, activist and poet, Noname. Since her stunning 2016 mixtape ‘Telefone’, a lot has been upgraded in her music, but many of her music’s best aspects remain. Noname’s jazz influenced style makes for an amazing listen. This time round though her instrumentals take on a more acoustic style with tracks ranging from a lush string arrangement in ‘Window’ to a funk infused bass guitar and drums cut on ... read more

ThePurpleIdiot
95

(kinda rushed this review sorry, still kinda emotionally drained from my Saba review I did yesterday… still good enough though! :3)

Why did it take so long for me to get to this album? This is absolutely amazing! My favorite part of the US that has hiphop is the Midwest. Mostly because of Detroit and Chicago. Where is Noname from? Chicago! This makes me love midwestern hiphop even more. This is one of my favorite modern underground hiphop records already! I’ve been planning on ... read more

90sHipHop
80

A beautiful jazzy modern record I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. The first track always makes me laugh when I hear that one bar about 9th grade english, so random. The runtime is also at that perfect Illmatic length! Its still a new listen for me so not much more I can say as of yet.

90

No bad song all were really good.

NBAMORBIUS
35

She’s a good writer but a horrible rapper. No charisma and so uninteresting I almost fell asleep. The production is good but it doesn’t come anywhere close to saving this album.

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Track List

1Self
1:34
89
2Blaxploitation
2:13
89
3Prayer Song
4:17
feat. Adam Ness
86
4Window
4:38
feat. Phoelix
89
5Don't Forget About Me
3:39
88
6Regal
2:48
85
7Montego Bae
2:43
87
8Ace
3:02
feat. Smino, Saba
88
9Part of Me
3:15
86
10With You
2:29
83
11no name
4:05
feat. Yaw, Adam Ness
91
Total Length: 34 minutes
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Added on: August 30, 2018