Originally announced in 2012, the mixtape faced numerous delays and was finally released four years later on July 31, 2016, as a free digital download.

[3] Noname first gained attention through her guest feature on the song "Lost" by Chance the Rapper from his second mixtape Acid Rap (2013).

[5] In January 2014, Noname stated that her first project Telefone would be either an extended play or mixtape, depending on if she could afford to pay for mixing.

I want people to feel like they’re on the phone with me, getting to know me better than a text message or a tweet.The artwork for Telefone was painted by Nikko Washington, the art director for Chicago collective SaveMoney.

Her voice is in a playful and confident middle range between forestalling, singing, and slam poetry, and her lyrics carve out enough details to fill the song with an entire imagined cast of characters—jealous boyfriends griping at girls in love with Raz-B from B2K; kids nabbing twenties from their mom's purse..."[24] Rolling Stone called the mixtape "some of 2016's most thought-provoking hip-hop.

"[23] Stereogum wrote that on Noname possessed "a potency and urgency in her complicated, spoken word-esque cadences and subdued delivery that escapes many of her more animated peers.

"[25] Consequence of Sound concluded that "the louder her music is played, the brighter her cadence glows, giving her lyrics a type of 3D craft that makes Telefone a diary of lessons too relevant to keep to yourself."