Noah23 is an artist from Guelph, Ontario in Canada who got started in his career over twenty years ago. In that time, he’s worked with people like Factor, Brzowski, AWOL One, PremRock, and Fresh Kils, just to name a few. While he’s released a few singles and some unreleased material in the last couple of years, his last proper album came in 2017, when he dropped Supa23 with Supa Sortahuman. Now he’s back with a new album on El Gran E Records, Ikosi Tria.

The title of this album, Ikosi Tria, is the Greek translation of the word “twenty three.” This number carries weight in different cultures, and it surely means a lot to the artist who made it part of his moniker, and considers it counter-culture signifier. So to celebrate his return in 2023, it’s only appropriate that he went all in on the number for this project, which includes twenty three new tracks. For the album, we get production from Pasquale, Nedarb, Only Osiriz, Fresh Kils, Cloudk!sser, Kufusan, Shoop, TruondaBeat, Jam, Rota, GLDN CHLD, Keyboard Kid, Pentagrvm, Rove, Stupiboy, Selcouth, EmptyBrother7, and Noah23 himself. That’s a lot of cooks in the kitchen, but Noah23 was careful with his selections, and he’s put together a nice mix of modern trap-influenced beats with some great underground boom bap as well. On the mic, Noah23 is coming like the veteran that he is, dropping rhymes that range from weed raps to abstract poetry to philosophical rhymes to some good old fashioned shit talking. The commitment to the number twenty three does mean that this album is on the longer side, with all of these tracks coming in at just under an hour in length, but the quality is pretty consistent across the album. So while in other circumstances I might suggest that the album needs to be trimmed a little, if Noah23 wants to release a twenty three track album in 2023, we should celebrate that he’s made it this far and he’s still making dope hip hop.

Ikosi Tria is a nice return for Noah23 and a celebration of his long career in hip hop. It covers a lot of ground, and gives you a deep dive into all the things that have made Noah23 special over the years.