Disclaimer: The lyrics of this album are explicit. Listener discretion is advised, and this article does not imply endorsement of such language.
Rating: 4.2 Out of 5.
Pulitzer Prize winner Kendrick Lamar, lauded and praised for his storytelling and lyricism, has had an eventful 2024. Over this year, he has engaged in a bitter, long rap feud with Drake that produced the number one hit single “Not Like Us,” which was full of accusations and innuendos against Drake. On the heels of this feud, hit singles, and a looming Super Bowl performance, he has dropped a surprise sixth studio album. Returning to a sound harkening to his West Coast roots, is GNX a fitting end to an eventful year for the artist?
Kendrick Lamar has been praised and celebrated for thematic depths, with his previous hit single “Alright,” an anthem of protests in response to the worsening conditions of police brutality in the land of the free. Yet, what GNX lacks in depth, it makes up for it in emotion as Lamar puts bluntly in “Wacced Out Murals”: “I want y’all to feel this.”
While his previous work, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, was an album of self-reflection, GNX, as described by CCHS sophomore student Leonardo Escobedo, is “one of braggadociousness that is a repeat of better work he did on previous albums such as Damn.” From the opening track of “Wacced Out Murals,” with haunting mariachi vocals from Deyra Barrera, he states, “Irony, I think my hard work let Lil Wayne down,” seemingly declaring a new feud on the horizon.
As the album progresses, there seem to be times when it feels as if this album is a throwback to previous hits from the artist. In the single “Luther,” the collaboration of R&B singer SZA creates a lush, lustful feeling that is a coda to their last hit single, “All The Stars.” The song “TV Off,” with its TikTok viral scream mustard, seems an inferior sequel to “Not Like Us,” yet nonetheless, it was my guilty pleasure song for the album. Yet sometimes, this repeat style doesn’t always work. In “Peekaboo,” with a waste of an opening sample of “Helping Hand,” the song turns into one of paranoia yet comes across as a lazy entry for an artist known to treat his albums as a French auteur does his movies.
Tupac Shakur and Kendrick Lamar have been the MJ and Lebron comparison of hip hop, both mega stars in their primes whose work has been lauded by many and hated by the few.
“Unlistenable is ‘reincarnated,’ a homage to Tupac at his most paranoid and disoriented, where Kendrick writes from the perspective of old-time artistic influences,” according to Pitchfork Magazine. To describe “reincarnated” as unlistenable, where the artist converses with God confronting hypocrisy, seems laughably ludicrous. The song is the most incredible showcase of Lamar’s writing ability. It is a pleasant surprise that the few songs on the album combine an equal distribution of sound and lyric complementing perfectly.
Perhaps many critics are put off by Lamar’s so-called Messiah complex, which at times feels egotistically vain. Yet the album’s final song “Gloria” with SZA, closes it off with one more love ballad that gives an in-depth window into his psyche. “The implication behind Gloria seems to be that the rapper has got where he is because he works harder at his craft in an era where hip hop fans complain about declining standards in lyrics and technique,” according to the Guardian.
Lamar is doing anything but slowing down. He recently announced a world tour in collaboration with SZA to promote their respective works. As a longtime fan, though, I am saddened if Lamar does sacrifice his unique style for commerciality, as seen in some entries on GNX. After all, Lamar has always said he makes music to electrify people.
Us k-dot Stan’s can only hope and pray he does not lose sight of what made him a legend, to begin with. That is the case of a man who made music to change the world, even if his world gets more complicated the longer the feud lasts.
