Kendrick Lamar wants his accolades and he’s coming for them. With the surprise release of his sixth LP, GNX on November 22nd, Lamar ends his eventful year still in the spotlight, after his beef with fellow rapper, Drake. Much of this album feels like a nod to a long-gone era, with samples from 1980s dance songs and straightforward, aggressive deliveries. This older style separates GNX from Lamar’s earlier narrative masterpieces like good kid M.A.A.D city (2012) or To Pimp a Butterfly (2015). Unlike Lamar’s previous albums, such as Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers (2022), GNX is not as dense and lacks a clear story line. Lamar shows us how to experience GNX, not as something to dissect, but something to feel, with a line on the opening track, “wacced out murals.” “F*** a double entendre, I want y’all to feel this s***.” Lamar wants the recognition he feels he deserves.
He directly addresses this need to be respected on the album’s fourth track “man at the garden,” where Lamar repeats the line, “I deserve it all.” Here he’s addressing his rap beef with Drake which progressed over a few months. In March, Lamar featured on “Like That,” a song off of Future Metro Boomin’s album, where he took clear shots at Drake, who fired back with “Push Ups.” These salvos led the two into a back and forth that lasted until May, when Lamar released “Not Like Us” and “Meet The Grahams,” essentially winning the battle. “Not Like Us” went on to be one of the most commercially successful rap songs ever.
This, Lamar feels, should have garnered him more favor in the hip-hop sphere and among the greats. On GNX, he raps “I deserve it all because it’s mine/ Tell me why you think you deserve the greatest of all time…” Throughout the album, he explores entitlement, artistic validation and his own legacy. He shows that GNX is another example of his outstanding talent, with tight songwriting, sharp lyricism, strong delivery and unique flows. But under all his fire, there is a sense of frustration with the industry and its refusal of his claim that he “deserves it all.” Instead, the industry pushes artists that Lamar feels don’t deserve to be popularized.
However, Lamar’s quest for recognition on GNX takes it out of the running as his masterpiece. It’s considerably less introspective and profound than the rest of his discography. This is not a concept album, by any stretch of the imagination. It lacks the clear focus and story that defined those previous albums. GNX is fragmented. It has some minor throughlines, but is mainly an album of independent tracks. The production by Sounwave and Jack Antonoff reflects the individual nature of the album. Many of the beats pulse with deep vintage-synth base hits, escaping the jazzy and trap-sounding rhythms abundant in his music. GNX doesn’t have a “Wesley’s Theory” or a “Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst.” The sounds on GNX are distant from Lamar’s previous work. The production feels like an attempt to bridge the gap between today’s hip-hop landscape and old-school rap, clearly seen on songs like “reincarnated,” where he samples 2Pac for the second time. In standing between these two landscapes, the album feels like a placeholder for his next big statement. This is Lamar still on the attack. Narrative is left to wait.
Lamar has made it clear in the past that he’s reshaping hip-hop itself, as mentioned multiple times throughout 2024, most notably on an untitled track he released through Instagram. The track states it’s time to “watch the party die,” likely a reference to the industry. As such, he feels complicated about modern rap. It’s a genre he wants to change and is often upset with, but at the same time it’s the core of who he is as a person. On GNX, he is not just paying tribute to legends like Nas and 2Pac, he is asserting himself as one of them. The 2Pac sample on “reincarnated,” for example, is a strategic response to Drake’s attempt to use the rapper’s AI-generated voice on the track, “Taylor Made Freestyle.” Unlike Drake, Lamar does 2Pac justice. He respectfully embraces 2Pac’s legacy, with a true sample instead of a strange voice clone. He knows how to embrace historical context.
But with all of this nostalgia, GNX is still a modern, aggressive album. On songs like “squabble up” and “tv off,” Lamar leans into his ferocity, reminding listeners that he is still in the moment, post-Drake beef. He has diss track lines such as “It used to be f** that [expletive], but now it’s plural.” This echoes his past conflicts and is a sign that he now wants to take on the entire industry. Where Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers felt like a resolved album, GNX is still in the weeds, without any clear resolution for the issues he lays out on his lyrics. He is caught between an easy victory lap and having to prove himself to a genre that is constantly changing.
The album is built on tension. The separation between Lamar’s masterful lyricism and the album’s lack of a clear narrative mirrors his internal struggle. Lamar is an artist with the innate ability to craft layered, poetic verses, but also one that has spent years grappling with an industry that won’t let him settle in peace. It’s not just basic recognition that he is after. He is rapping to be one of the greats, and in doing so has created a record that feels both triumphant and slightly frustrated.
