Che Noir - Royalty

"To tell the truth, I had family cross me more than a friend."

Album: Juno EP
Genre: Hip Hop, East Coast Hip Hop
Album Release: February 14th 2020
Length: 2:57
Producer: 38 Spesh
Vocalist: Che Noir [age 26], Street Justice & Klass Murda
Label: Trust Comes First

Official Audio

Charts, Streams & Sales

Spotify: Over 150 thousand
YouTube Music: Over 250 thousand

Credits

Details

• After making her presence known in 2019, Che Noir released another EP in 2020 called 'Juno', which in typically humble hip hop fashion is named after the God queen of the Roman pantheon. Juno is, of course, synonymous with the Greek goddess Hera, the wife of Zeus. 'Juno' is often overlooked because Che released her debut album later that same year but the record features some quality music in much the same vein as her 2019 'Thrill of the Hunt' EP's.
  
  The tracks are short and act as a showcase of Che's potential, but the work is clearly promising, autobiographical and has a strong narrative sense centred around the rappers early relationships.
  
  Che reveals family secrets openly in a way that leaves nothing to the imagination. Her lyrics are statements without room for interpretation, and she even names the people involved, through their relationship to her. She says "classmate told me my father was a fiend and I felt so embarrassed", these are deeply personal revelations similar to those in Eminem's music .I can't imagine Che's dad was happy with her revealing his fiend status to the world, though mnaybe he's dead. She continues "she feels like she failed as a parent" when talking about her mum.
  
  It's like reading pages from Che's diary and it becomes clear that she has a fractured relationship with her family when she reveals she doesn't keep in touch with her sister. In 2022, her brother was killed in Richmond, Virginia.
  
  Despite the hardships, Che never paints herself as a victim. I was considering labelling her music as confessional though such an approach requires the admission of fault which are largely absent here. Che's music is about how the lives of others have affected her negatively and her want to distance herself from the environmental factors that make negative outcomes more likely. She wants to protect herself and sees money and success as the best way of achieving that aim.
  
  
• In the late 2010's a new wave of New York hip hop emerged not from New York city itself but from the broader region, especially around Buffalo and Rochester. There was Che Noir and 38 Spesh from the Trust Gang but also Conway, Westside Gunn and Benny the Butcher from Griselda Records, Jae Skeese, Eto and Elcamino among others.
  
  The artists had an undeniable classic east coast boom bap influence but it was updated with production techniques to create something new, authentic and exciting in a space where too many artists sounded the same. It was a genuine shot of adrenaline for an east coast scene that had become stale when compared to the surging popularity of trap from the south.
  
  The success of Griselda Records provided both opportunity and proof of concept to other people in the area who harboured similar ambitions. If you had beats and didn't know what to do with them you could send them to Griselda. If you didn't get a reply you could knock on the door.
  
  Artists like performing close to home because they don't have to pay for travel expenses and before long a strong local scene emerged around Buffalo, Rochester, Albany and Syracuse that rivaled that of the great New York city itself. 38 Spesh also set up Trust Comes First Music Group headquartered in Rochester.
  

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