Most may know Chicago rapper Noname from various collaborations with artists such as Chance the Rapper and Mick Jenkins, or her critically acclaimed debut album “Room 25”. The former slam poet has been one of the pillars of underground hip hop in Chicago for nearly 10 years, but in August 2019 she announced that she’d be exploring new horizons and launched Noname’s Book Club.
Noname’s Book Club is an online community that focuses on progressive works from writers of color. They do this by highlighting two books each month by writers of color or LGBTQ+ writers. In addition to having a huge online presence, Noname’s Book Club hosts monthly meetings in major cities for the club’s radical readers to discuss the books in a safe space. There are currently 6 official chapters in the US and one in London.
Noname is no stranger to the literary world. She’s stated in many interviews that her father was a book distributor and her mother was the first Black woman to own a bookstore in Chicago. Noname’s appreciation for independent and brick-and-mortar bookstores is a foundational part of her book club. All Chapter meetings are held in black-owned bookstores. Also, Noname encourages readers to shop local and steer clear of big companies, notably Amazon.
Accessibility to books is a common theme in Noname’s Book Club. On January 11th, the club celebrated “National Fuck Amazon” Day. Members were encouraged to go to their local libraries to receive library cards to receive monthly books for free, rather than purchasing them on Amazon. Throughout 2020, Noname has also been crowdsourcing funds to send the monthly readings to prisons across the nation.
Noname’s Book Club the reminder we all need about the history of Black Americans and literacy. The sad reality is that there are many negative connotations between Black Americans and reading, dating back to the 1700s. Anti-literacy laws in the US prohibited enslaved Africans from learning how to read or write. Punishment for ignoring the law varied. Whites who taught enslaved people to read or write were often fined and faced social repercussions, whereas enslaved people who sought out education were either jailed, fined, or severely beaten. Despite these anti-literacy laws, notable Black figures such as Sojourner Truth, Phyllis Wheatly, and Frederick Douglas were encouraged to seek out education and went on to create bodies of work that would encourage the abolition of slavery. In the 1920s, the Harlem Renaissance emerged out of New York City. Black creatives from all over the nation came to Harlem to cultivate Black literature, art, and music. Progressive writers such as Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, and W.E.B. DuBois found fame in that era of free expression. In the 1980s, Black female writers such as Toni Morrison and Alice Walker created classics like The Color Purple and The Bluest Eye that would go on to become Pulitzer Prize winners. “I’m trying to break apart the stereotype that n*ggas don’t read because we definitely do,” Noname told ESSENCE last year. She definitely achieves that with her book club.
In November, Noname hinted on Twitter that she may be quitting music, but the book club will still be running strong. Noname’s Books of the Month for February are Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde and Magical Negro by Morgan Parker. You can find out more about the club on the official site. If you’d like to help the book club grow or assist the club and their efforts to get free books to prisoners, check out the club’s Patreon.