Compton rapper, 17-time Grammy winner and Pulitzer Prize recipient Kendrick Lamar took a musical victory lap this Friday with the surprise release of his newest album, “GNX.” It takes time to address some heavy themes and pertinent social issues, demonstrative of Lamar’s signature attention to quality and artistry.
Over a career spanning more than two decades, Lamar has cemented himself as a critical darling and perennial hitmaker with albums like “good kid, m.A.A.d city,” “To Pimp A Butterfly” and “DAMN.,” the last of which earned the first Pulitzer Prize ever awarded to a hip-hop album.
Lamar’s discography is lauded for addressing tough subjects, issues that would otherwise be “just swept under the rug,” like his own inner-city upbringing in “good kid, m.A.A.d city” or his grappling with generational trauma through therapy in his 2022 double album “Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers.” Some publications consider him to be the biggest artist of the 2010s, and his momentum has carried well into the 2020s with the impact of his hit diss track “Not Like Us,” which became one of the most-streamed songs in history.
For someone of Lamar’s stature however, a millionaire businessman about to headline his second Super Bowl, authenticity is a difficult theme to address, and “GNX” mostly finds success trying to straddle the thin line between being confident and being conceited. Produced by Taylor Swift collaborator Jack Antonoff and acclaimed beatmaker Sounwave, “GNX” is a club record with a heart and a breath of fresh air in a hip-hop scene that has largely languished.
In the charged introduction “wacced out murals” featuring a poem recitation from mariachi singer and Los Angeles native Deyra Barerra, Lamar stokes the flames of his beef with the music industry, referencing a defaced mural as evidence of the culture’s hostility. Over a thumping beat, Lamar distances himself from his idols and the rest of the commercial hip-hop community that didn’t support his cause during the Drake feud.
“I never lost who I am for a rap image / It’s motivation if you wonder how I did it,” Lamar raps.
The next song, “squabble up,” expands on a catchy snippet that Lamar teased during his “Not Like Us” music video. He thrives on the spacey West Coast beat, throwing out bar after bar referencing his older work and iconic moments in hip-hop history, like Tupac spitting at reporters.
By contrast, the next two songs take a more melodic approach. Lamar and SZA team up on the laid-back “luther,” singing about love and better days over a richly orchestral instrumental produced by jazz saxophonist Kamasi Washington. The follow-up track, “man at the garden,” has a similarly gorgeous beat that complements Lamar’s exploration of worth and value as a person, asking the listener how much they value themselves.
These first four tracks, two club hits and two introspective slow-jams, illustrate the dichotomy of the record as a whole. Lamar injects both styles into the project in almost equal mixture, each trying to tell a different story. Overarching themes and motifs, like the poem that unfolds in lines throughout the project, give the album a strong sense of cohesion.
One of this album’s highlights, “reincarnated,” is an incredibly intelligent dissection of musicianship and Lamar’s influence in the Black community scored by a bumping Tupac sample. Lamar imagines himself in the shoes of famous Black artists. He compares himself to Lucifer and vows to God that he will change his ways: “Then let’s rejoice where we at / I rewrote the devil’s story just to take our power back.”
The next track, “tv off,” is a spiritual successor to “Not Like Us,” which was also produced by DJ Mustard. Lamar rockets from verse to verse, ending it all with a screaming send-off to his haters. He follows this electric song with an ode to his native Los Angeles and its World Series-winning baseball team in “dodger blue.”
While the penultimate song, the titular “gnx,” is somewhat disorganized with disappointing features, the final song on the album, “gloria,” is another standout. Lamar joins up with SZA again, singing about his tumultuous “complicated relationship” in the genre of hip-hop.
“GNX” as an album seems to be a mission statement for Lamar. Despite being one of the biggest artists on the planet, he insists he won’t rest on his laurels and intends to be an advocate for both his community and his culture. “GNX” is an album that is uncompromising, for better and for worse, and shows that Lamar is not ready to abdicate his hip-hop throne.
