Personal and regional respect is earned on Lamar’s sixth studio album, fuelled by rage, reflection and a fever to relish the victims of his tripwires.
In Chinese zodiac signs, 2024 is the Year of the Dragon—a mythical fire-breathing creature interpreted as both dangerous or beneficent, depending on cultural and media depiction. In both regards, it’s deemed a significant force, whether good or evil. Compton’s Kendrick Lamar has been combusting hip hop all throughout 2024, whether for the casual fan’s entertainment or for the genre’s greater good. Three years ago on “Family Ties”, he declared he’s “Smoking on top fives”. It felt like an empty threat that came and went—right until March 2024 when “Like That” entered the Ozone layer of rap’s stratosphere. A volume of measured diss tracks with Drake ensued, including “Euphoria” and the ill-famed anthem of the year, “Not Like Us”. Only Future could contest Kendrick for Rapper of the Year, even without an album.
With the 2025 Super Bowl show announcement to seemingly top it all off, Lamar surprise-dropped a 12-track album straight to DSPs, the album cover reenacting classic rap photography (think Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter II, Hov’s Hard Knock Life and Biggie’s Life After Death).
GNX is a rescue mission to take back regional dominance, resulting in Lamar’s best album since 2015’s To Pimp a Butterfly.
GNX is a hybrid of the expected and the unexpected. It homes Sounwave, Mustard and Jack Antonoff production (Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, Lorde), vocal openings courtesy of mariachi singer Deyra Barrera, eight appearances from rising LA rappers, and beef-adjacent callbacks that match up to the bigger picture. It delivers on the “Like That” lyric, “I crash out like ‘Fuck rap’”, sacrificing the double entendres and industry connections to be as brazen as possible—even if he very much so still cares about rap. Sonically, the producers help Kendrick strip it all back, with A/B album sequencing that goes from personal to regional track to track.
On the title track, Kendrick declares: “Who put the West back in front of shit?” And it’s hard to disagree with him. GNX is chock-full of West Coast bangers to make even the most inept dancer C-walk over to the nearest street party. In hindsight, June’s Pop Out prepared us for GNX in ways we couldn’t determine. Hyphy makes a comeback on “Hey Now”, a muted creeper accented by fast breaths before coming to life at the halfway mark. The “Broccoli” snippet at the start of the “Not Like Us” video appears as “Squabble Up”; its warbling bounce oddly itching your senses. The Mustard-produced “TV Off” is the album’s bonafide speaker-splitter, guaranteeing GNX to have multiple hits without the need to attach any of the diss tracks on here.
At the same time, GNX is in hot pursuit of bringing back the fundamentals of hip hop legacy. The aforementioned artwork starts it off, heading further with “Man at the Garden” that takes inspiration from Nas’s “One Mic”. His declaration of “I deserve it all” sounds arrogant, but is firmly honest. He calls back to the “The Heart Pt. 3” line, “When the whole world see you as Pac reincarnated”, and Drake’s use of AI Tupac on “Taylor Made Freestyle” on album highlight “Reincarnated”, rapping from the perspective of troubled musicians that were part of his previous lifetimes before ultimately performing as himself in a conversation with God. It’s the centrepiece to the album’s Morale-esque contradictions, granted many-a-chance to rectify past ‘mistakes’ but still falling short; engaging in rap wars to the detriment of Drake & others, while sitting on the high horse of hip hop that doubles up as a throne—all coming from the same man claiming he “deserves it all”. Sampling Tupac and Outlawz in the process, it’s a track that ordains the same class as Lamar classics like “FEAR” and “How Much a Dollar Cost”.
Kendrick’s humour and delivery is goofier than ever. It’s always been his best trait, because plenty rappers can be lyrical or storytell—but none can offer entertaining vocal inflexions like Kendrick. Lines like “I feel good, get the fuck out my faaaace”, “What they talkin’ bout? They ain’t talkin’ ’bout nothin’”, “Heyheyheyheyhey that’s my bitch”, and the immediately-memed “Mustaaaard” on the “TV Off” drop help grant GNX some of the silliest yet catchiest songs of the year.
Lyrically there’s sacrifices made. The conscious preacher-man Kendrick’s doubters label him as are given what they’re ideally after. It isn’t the brow-raising therapy session of Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers, or the whiteboard diagram of conspiracies that come attached to DAMN. Instead, lyrical gems are scattered across the record, ending with one of the finest of all, “Gloria”—a straightforward extended metaphor written as a love interest that’s revealed to be Kendrick’s pen. It’s the most easy-going album of his career, something that was arguably overdue.
At this stage in his career, Kendrick should be granted grace for a concept-free album. The opener “Wacced Out Murals” proves the recency of the album’s recording—as recent as a couple months ago. But even without a fully-fleshed concept, “Reincarnated” and “Man at the Garden” feel like the album centrepieces, and they say more than what the album seems. Kendrick believes he’s the realest as they come both as a rapper and as an LA native. But he’s open to embracing this inherent crookedness we all possess but never seem to admit. We all dislike certain people, certain concepts, certain things, yet are so adamant to portray ourselves as good people. We can be both because we are both, and in some ways that is fine.
Being Kendrick’s shortest album to date works heavily in its favour. GNX achieves the impossible feat of all twelve songs serving as highlights. It’s a disservice to call the title track a weak cut, though it may earn that label due to its rudimentary beat. Yet the flows and performances from the four rappers light up a beat that would otherwise be found in a FL Studio starter pack. Even at a trimmed two minutes, “Dodger Blue” is a glamorous moment that makes use of its five guest vocalists like fresh parsley.
With GNX, the West Coast renaissance is complete, erasing the outsider’s party and starting his own one. 2024 goes down in hip hop history. Enemies were made. Records were etched. “Mustard” was screamed. Kendrick Lamar’s tripping and we’re loving it.
9 / 10
Best tracks: “TV Off”, “Reincarnated”, “Hey Now”, “Man at the Garden”, “Squabble Up”, “Peekaboo”
