Noel was born in Brooklyn, New York. He was further raised in Queens until his family moved to Stone Mountain, Georgia. He is of Panamanian descent. He began attending Morehouse College and transferred to New York University. He continued through Tisch School of Arts until he was called away to Los Angeles.
In 2015, Noel landed the role of Daniel King on Insecure. Noel described Daniel as being the opposite of him, "I was nervous about playing Daniel. I love being around women...but I’ve always felt a bit awkward, well, insecure, around women I’ve had crushes on. Daniel doesn’t seem to have any of that awkwardness... Daniel’s extremely confident and goes after what he wants."
In 2018, Noel played the lead role of Dmitri in The First Purge, which he considered very challenging, having said, "I feel like I started to actually physiologically relate to these fictional characters and what they would have to experience if they were to go about surviving the Purge."

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