Yanis Valderrama ’27
“Rainforest”: Noname’s Commentary on the Effects of Colonialism and Capitalism’s on the Black Community
How do you get closer to love? This question is posed at the opening of “Rainforest,” written by native Chicago rapper Noname. Through “Rainforest,” Noname provides explicit and bold commentary on the effects of capitalism and colonialism on the black community. While navigating these difficulties, Noname introduces the song through a broad, rhetorical question, “How you get closer to love?” This causes the listener to delve into what love means in this scenario. World love? Love with another person? Self-love? Or perhaps the question is not rhetorical at all and Noname is speaking directly to the listener while observing how they get closer to this niche and personal concept of love. This broad first line sets up the spiraling journey Noname intends to take us on, causing a sense of overwhelming uncertainty through this simple six-word sentence.
As the song progresses, Noname begins to question the world she exists in, taking into account her black identity and at times speaking directly to members of the black community. Most notably in the chorus, she continually asks “How you make excuses for billionaires you broke on a bus?” This questions the choices of specific members of the black community while giving them a reality check. The mention of the bus alludes to the initial driving force of the civil rights movement: Claudette Coleman and Rosa Parks’s refusal to give up their seats on a segregated bus. She then almost immediately shifts the topic to another saying “I need niggas rollin’ up and smokin’ me up.” This phrasing leads us to believe she wants herself and her art to be consumed for pleasure. Also, this line alludes 3 to the biblical concept of communion: the consumption of Jesus through wine (pleasure) and bread (vital food). Noname wishes to be consumed only for pleasure, however, her consumption is detrimental over time. Through this, Noname continues her thoughts as she shifts to a different topic, saying “A rainforest cries.” Through this verbiage, Noname personifies the rainforest and uses this to parallel herself and other women in the black community. This personification symbolizes her acting as a shelter and vessel for her community, just as the rainforest is the home and shelter for many plants and animals. The rainforest is also under attack (ie. global warming, and fires in the Amazon), just as black women are often the subject of ridicule and/or under attack physically and emotionally. Through this line, Noname calls attention to the issues prevalent in her community and how they relate to the world as a whole.
Falling further down the rabbit hole that is “Rainforest” by Noname, the internal conversation continues. Noname calls herself “the emptiest hallelujah,” a vague and intriguing phrase that causes the listener to question exactly what she means. By aligning herself with this concept, she is unifying black experiences and sharing her feelings with other members of the black community. Continuing this alignment of Noname and the black community, she says “I make money for money sake, I been writin’ a hundred days.” This perpetuates the common black concept of working harder than the average non-black American. “Getting money for money’s sake” in order to accumulate money is an attempt to regulate the disproportionate distribution of wealth between white and black Americans. Noname then speaks through religious ideas as the song progresses, with the lyric “I am the I am, says Sam am I.” Noname uses the words from biblical scripture and Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham in the same line, causing them to hold equal weight in the listener’s mind. This suggests questioning of Christian religious concepts and a possible lack of adherence to them. Noname later takes on a different voice to comment on the pressures associated with black femininity saying “Baby, come on, you know this flesh is only temporary, brittle as bone.” Through this shift of perspective, Noname is able to add a level of reality and explain the sexual pressures she experiences through her life as a femme-presenting person. She does this by describing a scenario where her physicality is treated as temporary in an attempt to diminish its reality and weight. Noname then pivots away from the controversial topics she’s discussing and says she just wants to dance. This cry to dance is a subtle allusion to Outkast’s “Hey Ya!” where Andre 3000 says “Y’all don’t want to hear me, you just want to dance.” Noname doesn’t draw too much attention to the words she’s saying and avoids giving them power and a sense of reality, thus her frequent shifts in topic and focus. She doesn’t want to hear herself, she just wants to dance.
After the chorus, Noname continues her jumbled internal dialogue, digesting the experiences of herself and members of her community. The line “Talkin’ to Muhammed like, ‘Niggas don’t really trust us,’” is loaded with symbolism. This thought-provoking statement can have multiple meanings, as the listener is left to wonder who Muhammed is. Is Muhammed someone named Muhammed, or is Noname referring to the prophet Muhammed? If the former, it is possible that Noname is showing the unity through adversity that is possible between people of color. We assume Muhammed to be a brown person as the name, has saturation in the Middle East and India. As we assume Muhammed is of Southeast Asian or Arab descent, we can gather that Noname is equating the experiences of racism in America through her experience as a black woman, and his possible experience as a man of color. However, Noname could also be referring to the prophet Muhammed (followed by the religion of Islam), equating her messages to those of the prophet and pointing out the doubts many may have about their teachings. Noname then further delves into the racism she faces in her community, specifically at the hands of white people and major corporations. She uses the line “You ain’t seen death, I can hear the blood on the moon” to push her point and frustration with the murder and war on the black community. The murder of black youth being so prevalent, traumatic, and sadly common, causes such a deep effect that any attempt to escape it such as flying to the moon would fall short. Noname’s final commentary on white America before returning to the chorus is “these bitches is cokeheads, man (uh), fuck a billionaire, nigga.” Cokeheads, a rendition of the much more common phrase ‘crackhead,’ is an intentional deviation by Noname. These billionaires being cokeheads is a reference to the Reagan administration’s war on drugs. Factors such as price, purity, and lessened jail time, associate white rich Americans with cocaine, whereas crack was planted in black neighborhoods (due to its impurity and price), and is still prevalent to this day.
Noname through the rainforest shares the frustrations of her community. She often uses herself as a vessel for her community and shares her strive and commitment to change. Rainforest uses Noname’s voice to call attention to systematic issues in our communities and world, bouncing around, through topics within the black community and through the world as we experience it.