Che Noir
Location: Buffalo, New York, USA
Genre: Hip Hop
Years Active: 2018 -
Real Name: Marche Lashawn
Meaning of the Name: Che in Spanish is 'God will increase', Noir is French for 'black'
Way of Working: Raps over a producer's beats
Associated: 38 Spesh, Apollo Brown
Labels: Mello Music Group, Trust Gang
Essential Releases
The Thrill of the
Hunt 2 EP (2019)
Early effort that heralded the rise of a femcee with deep bars and intricate wordplay.
As God
Intended (2020)
A more introspective full length with producer Apollo Brown that showcases her narrative strengths.
Forget slow burns. When Buffalo's Che Noir hit the underground hip hop scene in 2019, it was with the impact of a seasoned veteran, her two Thrill of the Hunt EP's instantly redefining reality rap. She laid bare the experiences of an emerging talent who would soon be trading bars with underground veterans such as Ransom and Planet Asia.
Straight out of Buffalo, New York, her music hits with the raw, unfiltered grit of the city streets, a true testament to unadulterated hip hop that focuses on lyricism, flow, everyday struggles, and the rapper’s ambition to make it big.
It’s everything you want hip hop to be. It doesn’t overcomplicate things for the sake of it, and the social commentary comes from lessons learned via experience instead of clumsy statements made about society at large. A prime example of this is 'Daddy's Girl', where she details her relationship with her drug-addicted father from the perspective of a young girl waiting for a knock on the door that rarely ever comes.
"Anybody home? Who is it? It's your daddy. Hey it's daddy, finally!" (from 'Daddy's Girl)
It’s evident on a first listen that Che Noir has a natural gift for storytelling; her lyrics have a strong sense of narrative that move organically from one to the next. Her approach is more traditional than the disconnected imagery, or stream-of-consciousness style employed by experimental rappers such as Billy Woods because Che has more conventional aims.
She isn’t looking to push the boundaries of hip hop into unexplored terrain, instead, she wants to follow in the footsteps of the genre's commercial greats so she can be as rich and successful as them.
Che wastes no time in letting people know her intentions. She describes growing up poor, 'the living room was like a bedroom had to sleep on the couch' and her ambition to overcome such challenges 'opportunities knocking I give it keys to the house' with a frank poetry that make it immediately accessible to scores of hip hop fans who want to rise above the circumstances of their birth. But Che, as a Christian woman, is far from an ordinary rapper, which make her ability to connect with the fanbase particularly noteworthy.
"I gotta give God the most praise, and my n*gga do too, I won't date a n*gga who don't pray" (from 'Fall of Rome')
I don’t want to overstate Che being a religious woman because her music stands on its own two feet, but the truth is, the feminine and the Christian viewpoints are woefully underserved in hip hop. As such, her rapping becomes even more valuable because of its relative scarcity, offering nuanced layers of understanding to the realities of America's harsh streets. For anyone seeking hip hop that's both deeply personal and universally resonant, Che Noir isn't just an artist to watch, she's an essential listen.
