Che Noir

Born in Buffalo in 1994, Marche Lashawn, known professionally as Che Noir, absorbed the styles of Foxy Brown, Jay-Z, and the Notorious B.I.G. during her formative years there. While still in high school a friend showed her how to create beats, after which she quickly began writing and performing her own rhymes. At age 21 she committed fully to the craft, erecting studios in Buffalo and Niagara Falls to record her earliest material and issuing the 2016 mixtape Poetic Thoughts.

An introduction to the Griselda Records circle yielded the 2017 track “Tyson” with Benny the Butcher. She soon aligned with Rochester rapper and producer 38 Spesh, guesting on his 2018 Kool G Rap collaboration Son of G Rap and on several of his solo projects; 38 Spesh in turn produced her 2018 release The Thrill of the Hunt, its 2019 sequel, and 2020’s Juno. That same year she teamed with Detroit producer Apollo Brown for the Mello Music Group album As God Intended, which included appearances by Black Thought of the Roots, Skyzoo, and Planet Asia, and closed the year with the EP After 12. Her self-produced album Food for Thought arrived in early 2022.

Noir also produced Jynx716’s EP Careful What You Wish For. Later in 2022 she released the live EP Poetic Sounds and The Last Remnants, featuring “Wash the Dishes” with Benny the Butcher and “Bidding War” with Ransom. Portions of the project originated in early 2020 sessions as well as during the Food for Thought recordings, giving the collection a partly archival character. Che Noir, the Buffalo, New York emcee and producer, delivers forceful, unfiltered lyrics over beats modeled on mid-’90s East Coast rap, a breadth illustrated by 2020’s As God Intended with Apollo Brown and 2022’s Food for Thought.