To his teachers, he is known as Noah Baron but to his friends and fans, he is known as Matan.

Baran is a rapper with the stage name Matan. Along with rapping, he does spoken word and writes his own poetry. Before rapping, he started out doing spoken word at open mics and writing workshops for peotry run by a program called YCA, or Young Chicago Authors. While at YCA, they really pushed Baron to puruse his music career more seriously.

“I’ve always messed around with rhymes since I was in middle school, but YCA pushed me to take my music more seriously,” Baron said.

Baron found out about YCA by being on Lane’s Poetry Slam team. He has been a part of  the slam team since freshman year. YCA puts on a show called Louder Than a Bomb, which Baron has participated in every year.

Baron, along with his friends, performed at the Lane Talent Show earlier this year. As well as the talent show, Baron and his newly started band plan to preform at the Clay and Arts Festival at Lane later this spring. Baron, along with Lane student John Sader and  other members at Von Steuben and Mather, plan to call the band “The Loop”, after the Chicago Loop. Since all members have different types of music backgrounds, the sound Baron describes is going to be funky. It will range from punk rock to 90s R&B.

As far as working solo, Baron has already started working with some producers that he has met through mutual friends.

His musical influences have come from mostly artists out of Chicago.

“Lately I’ve been into acts like Chance the Rapper, Mick Jenkins, Defcee, Noname Gypsy, Marrow, and Vic Mensa,” Baron said. “But if I had to choose one to work with, it would definitely be Chance.”

Baron is working with the producers he met in hopes of dropping some singles by the end of the school year.

   Listen to his music at: 

http://soundcloud.com/matanohablante