Kendrick Lamar has always been one of rap’s more fascinating and vulnerable acts. He’s let us into the deep recesses of his past, his thinking and his motivations. However, Lamar’s latest album, a surprise drop titled GNX, finds the Compton, California, MC speaking as his most raw, unfiltered self. And it’s largely thanks to a feud that changed his career trajectory.
For the past 15 years, Lamar has carefully curated his personal story for the masses. The man who has professed that he lives a boring life has been able to break every aspect of his own news to the world. We found out he went to Africa when he told us the trip inspired 2015’s To Pimp a Butterfly. And at the end of Damn., we learned that Top Dawg Entertainment CEO Anthony “Top” Tiffith once robbed Lamar’s father. And Lamar revealed his own relationship and mental health struggles on Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers. Unlike, say, Drake, who lives on the internet and has so much of his personal life filtered through TMZ, NBA courtside memes, and his own ecosystem of rumor mills, Lamar only pops out when he wants to tell us just enough to feel connected to him.
But all that changed in 2024.
Kendrick Lamar’s ‘The Pop Out’ concert turned hate into loveRead now
The feud with Drake forced Lamar to address someone else putting his business in the street. It made him react for the first time in his career. And while he eviscerated Drake throughout the feud, the back-and-forth of pure aggression taught us more about Lamar than we’d ever known. Namely, we learned that Lamar is a compassionate and tenderhearted, yet vindictive Gemini demon seed who is equal parts hate and love, with both emotions firing out of his pores with the intensity of a million warheads. It’s through the feud with Drake that we learned just what drives Lamar: the need to be the best, the personal insult he feels when anyone tests him, his love for hip-hop and unifying the culture and his home, and that the man has no idea what overkill is. We’ve spent the last decade-plus learning so much about Lamar at his own pace, but now we know what makes him tick. And we can thank Drake for that, I guess.
GNX gives us Lamar who has a choice on his hands. He can disregard the unintended leaking of his deeply felt ethos and create something new. Or he can lean into the Lamar we now know and love more than ever. He’s thankfully chosen the latter, giving us an album that taps into more of his grievances, yes, but it also frees Lamar to display his love as loudly as he ever has before. Sure, his snipes at rapper Snoop Dogg for posting Drake’s diss earlier this year and his sadness over rapper Lil Wayne’s anger at not being picked for the Super Bowl halftime performance in New Orleans in February 2025 are going to grab the headlines, as are the other victory lap digs at Drake. But the album is also a homage to the influences that make Lamar who he is.
The actual GNX is an old-school Buick, and the album’s sounds seem to be music that Lamar listened to as a kid riding around in one of those classic cars. We get a Luther Vandross sample, interpolations of a Tupac Shakur track, an SWV hook, and a whole slew of West Coast tracks backed by DJ Mustard. The latter, especially, must be addressed, dear reader, as you will hear many people who call these songs — “hey now,” “tv off,” and “dodger blue” among them — as mere “Not Like Us” riffs. Please ignore them as they are from an era and understanding of hip-hop that does not include regional sounds and a true love of music that sounds like home. In their own way, these songs are also rebukes of Drake. See, the Canadian MC of “Houstatlantavegas” fame helped usher in an era of music that was Frankenstein’d together and blended so many regions that it became harder to distinguish Atlanta from New York, or Los Angeles from Chicago. But on GNX, Kendrick loaded up the album with a distinctly G-Funk inspired, synth-based, towering West Coast sound backed by the biggest producer in the region. With every track sounding like the type of blockbuster hit that could be on a Super Bowl halftime show stage and featuring rappers from his hometown (Dody 6, Sam Dew, Roddy Ricch and others), it is a continuation of the Pop Out show’s theme of unifying the neighborhood.
But it’s the other moments, the ones where Lamar is menacingly introspective, with his chest out after demolishing his rap peer that feel just as triumphant as DJ Mustard’s horns. “man at the garden” is already finding itself among my most-played songs of November. The track is influenced by Nas’ “One Mic,” another early influence, and features the affirmational refrain “I deserve it all.” The song isn’t as booming as “Alright” or “Not Like Us” as protest anthems, but the track provides a chant that helps listeners dismantle our own battles with imposter syndrome. “I said I deserve it all, I never ask for too much credit, Seekin’ validation just for the aesthetics,” he raps on the track.
But Lamar’s Gemini tendencies seep out again on the album because as he pokes his chest out, he reflects on his shortcomings. On “heart pt. 6,” Lamar takes us through the formation of Top Dawg Entertainment and his group Black Hippy, while taking blame for the group’s shortcomings and admitting where he could have been more mature. It’s the type of vulnerability we’ve expected from Lamar, but it feels even more real because we know him better now.
The “Heart” series usually comes before Lamar drops an album. Add that to the fact the preview snippet for the album featured two cars and a song that wasn’t on GNX, and it looks like we have another full-length project on the way. Lamar’s been dropping songs on American holidays since his feud with Drake started, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we get a Thanksgiving drop or, more appropriately, an MLK Day release (which would occur the week before the presidential inauguration). Either way, we may get a project that tells a complete story like most of Lamar’s albums.
For now, we can bask in the organic, messy, experimental realness of GNX and the new Lamar who feels his most familiar and down to earth, even as his career enters another stratosphere.
David Dennis Jr. is a senior writer at Andscape, and the author of the award-winning book “The Movement Made Us: A Father, a Son, and the Legacy of a Freedom Ride.” David is a graduate of Davidson College.
