Kendrick Lamar, known for redefining genres and raising the bar in lyricism, “surprise dropped” his sixth studio album, “GNX” on Nov. 22 2024. This album was primarily produced by Jack Antonoff, famous for being Taylor Swift’s preferred producer, and hip-hop icon DJ Mustard and follows Lamar’s rap beef with Toronto rapper “Drake.”
The most notable song from the beef being the catchy West Coast single “Not Like Us,” which topped out at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks. The “Not Like Us” music video dropped just two months after the song’s initial release which featured a snippet from a never before heard Kendrick song. The snippet was oozing charisma and is captivating on first listen. Luckily this snippet turned out to be a part of the song “squabble up” which is the second song on the tracklist.
Lamar opens the album swinging with “wacced out murals” dissing the rap industry itself, firing shots at Lil Wayne and having censored bars presumably about P. Diddy. It’s clear Lamar wants it to be known on this album that he has not gotten soft since the beef.
The album is full of these hard hitting aggressive tracks similar to “wacced out murals” with songs like, “hey now,” “peekaboo” and fan favorite “tv off.”
“tv off” gained popularity with Lamar screaming Mustard at the beat switch. The song on first listen is exciting and shares lots of similarities to “Not Like Us,” but after multiple listens, this song, while still very good, begins to get stale.
The far superior aggressive track is “hey now,” which features a masterclass of production with an insanely bassy 808 and super satisfying synthetic sounding breaths that hit on the off beat. Lamar flows right over this beat and when the feature artist Dody6 comes in, with his very gritty vocals, their traded vocals are exciting and full of threatening energy.
By far the most popular song on the album is “luther.” This song is much more relaxed and R&B derived compared to the high-energy tracks previously mentioned. The song gains its name from the legendary R&B singer Luther Vandross and samples Vandross’ song “If This World Were Mine”. It’s easy to see why this song blew up, the hook is memorable and the verses with the featured artist, SZA are complemented with the orchestral production.
Songs like “luther” reveal one of the motives that Lamar had with the release of this album. One big point of contention with the beef was that Lamar doesn’t sell as many records and isn’t played in the club or the radio like Drake is. Since the popularity of “Not Like Us,” has proved that he can sell records and hit the club and on this record seems to want to continue this widespread success with songs like “luther.”
Many though, due to this newfound popularity see Lamar as a sellout and on this album reduced his artistry in the search for popularity. The album is frequently criticized for not being a “concept” record like many of his previous releases. This criticism vastly misses the point of the album. This album is meant to be a victory lap of the West Coast and what Lamar has been able to accomplish over his time in hip-hop. No line encapsulates this more than when he says “F*** a double entendre, I want ya’ll to feel this s***” in “wacced out murals”.
Lamar is also able to quench the thirst of his die hard fans who love to dissect his lyrics on multiple tracks throughout the album; the record is not all just hits. “reincarnated” is one of Lamar’s most brilliantly written tracks to date while also being an amazing homage on the Tupac beat that Jack Antonoff recreated. “gloria” is stocked full of fun double entendres and is a great twist on a love song with it being about his pen/writing ability, and “heart pt. 6” storytelling makes for a nostalgic end to his time with TDE records.
Lamar’s balance of lyricism and energetic hooks make this album easily re-playable and while being one of his only pieces of work that isn’t a concept album his message could not be more clear; the West Coast runs the rap game right now. One of the most unique parts of this album is the features being almost exclusively underground west coast artists which creates this full circle moment with Lamar talking about his humble beginnings in “heart pt. 6”.
“GNX” fits perfectly in Lamar’s discography, ending his rap beef era and providing a promising outlook to the future of his career.
