{"id":742,"date":"2024-11-25T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-25T09:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/2024\/11\/kendrick-lamar-gnx-review\/"},"modified":"2024-11-25T09:30:00","modified_gmt":"2024-11-25T09:30:00","slug":"kendrick-lamar-gnx-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/2024\/11\/kendrick-lamar-gnx-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Kendrick Lamar, \u2018GNX\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Personal and regional respect is earned on Lamar\u2019s sixth studio album, fuelled by rage, reflection and a fever to relish the victims of his tripwires.<\/p>\n

In Chinese zodiac signs, 2024 is the Year of the Dragon\u2014a mythical fire-breathing creature interpreted as both dangerous or beneficent, depending on cultural and media depiction. In both regards, it\u2019s deemed a significant force, whether good or evil. Compton\u2019s Kendrick Lamar has been combusting hip hop all throughout 2024, whether for the casual fan\u2019s entertainment or for the genre\u2019s greater good. Three years ago on \u201cFamily Ties\u201d, he declared he\u2019s \u201cSmoking on top fives\u201d. It felt like an empty threat that came and went\u2014right until March 2024 when \u201cLike That\u201d entered the Ozone layer of rap\u2019s stratosphere. A volume of measured diss tracks with Drake ensued, including \u201cEuphoria\u201d and the ill-famed anthem of the year, \u201cNot Like Us\u201d. Only Future could contest Kendrick for Rapper of the Year, even without an album.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s Tha Carter II<\/em>, Hov\u2019s Hard Knock Life<\/em> and Biggie\u2019s Life After Death<\/em>).<\/p>\n

GNX <\/em>is a rescue mission to take back regional dominance, resulting in Lamar\u2019s best album since 2015\u2019s To Pimp a Butterfly<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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GNX<\/em> 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 \u201cLike That\u201d lyric, \u201cI crash out like \u2018Fuck rap’\u201d, sacrificing the double entendres and industry connections to be as brazen as possible\u2014even 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.<\/p>\n

On the title track, Kendrick declares: \u201cWho put the West back in front of shit?\u201d And it\u2019s hard to disagree with him. GNX<\/em> 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\u2019s Pop Out<\/em> prepared us for GNX<\/em> in ways we couldn\u2019t determine. Hyphy makes a comeback on \u201cHey Now\u201d, a muted creeper accented by fast breaths before coming to life at the halfway mark. The \u201cBroccoli\u201d snippet at the start of the \u201cNot Like Us\u201d video appears as \u201cSquabble Up\u201d; its warbling bounce oddly itching your senses. The Mustard-produced \u201cTV Off\u201d is the album\u2019s bonafide speaker-splitter, guaranteeing GNX <\/em>to have multiple hits without the need to attach any of the diss tracks on here.<\/p>\n

At the same time, GNX <\/em>is in hot pursuit of bringing back the fundamentals of hip hop legacy. The aforementioned artwork starts it off, heading further with \u201cMan at the Garden\u201d that takes inspiration from Nas\u2019s \u201cOne Mic\u201d. His declaration of \u201cI deserve it all\u201d sounds arrogant, but is firmly honest. He calls back to the \u201cThe Heart Pt. 3\u201d line, \u201cWhen the whole world see you as Pac reincarnated\u201d, and Drake\u2019s use of AI Tupac on \u201cTaylor Made Freestyle\u201d on album highlight \u201cReincarnated\u201d, 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\u2019s the centrepiece to the album\u2019s Morale<\/em>-esque contradictions, granted many-a-chance to rectify past \u2018mistakes\u2019 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\u2014all coming from the same man claiming he \u201cdeserves it all\u201d. Sampling Tupac and Outlawz in the process, it\u2019s a track that ordains the same class as Lamar classics like \u201cFEAR\u201d and \u201cHow Much a Dollar Cost\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Kendrick\u2019s humour and delivery is goofier than ever. It\u2019s always been his best trait, because plenty rappers can be lyrical or storytell\u2014but none can offer entertaining vocal inflexions like Kendrick. Lines like \u201cI feel good, get the fuck out my faaaa<\/em>ce\u201d, \u201cWhat they talkin\u2019 bout? They ain\u2019t talkin\u2019 \u2019bout nothin’\u201d, \u201cHeyheyheyheyhey that\u2019s my bitch\u201d, and the immediately-memed \u201cMustaaaard\u201d on the \u201cTV Off\u201d drop help grant GNX<\/em> some of the silliest yet catchiest songs of the year.<\/p>\n

Lyrically there\u2019s sacrifices made. The conscious preacher-man Kendrick\u2019s doubters label him as are given what they\u2019re ideally after. It isn\u2019t the brow-raising therapy session of Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers<\/a><\/em>, or the whiteboard diagram of conspiracies that come attached to DAMN<\/em>. Instead, lyrical gems are scattered across the record, ending with one of the finest of all, \u201cGloria\u201d\u2014a straightforward extended metaphor written as a love interest that\u2019s revealed to be Kendrick\u2019s pen. It\u2019s the most easy-going album of his career, something that was arguably overdue.<\/p>\n

At this stage in his career, Kendrick should be granted grace for a concept-free album. The opener \u201cWacced Out Murals\u201d proves the recency of the album\u2019s recording\u2014as recent as a couple months ago. But even without a fully-fleshed concept, \u201cReincarnated\u201d and \u201cMan at the Garden\u201d feel like the album centrepieces, and they say more than what the album seems. Kendrick believes he\u2019s the realest as they come both as a rapper and as an LA native. But he\u2019s 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<\/em> both, and in some ways that is fine.<\/p>\n

Being Kendrick\u2019s shortest album to date works heavily in its favour. GNX<\/em> achieves the impossible feat of all twelve songs serving as highlights. It\u2019s 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, \u201cDodger Blue\u201d is a glamorous moment that makes use of its five guest vocalists like fresh parsley.<\/p>\n

With GNX<\/em>, the West Coast renaissance is complete, erasing the outsider\u2019s party and starting his own one. 2024 goes down in hip hop history. Enemies were made. Records were etched. \u201cMustard\u201d was screamed. Kendrick Lamar\u2019s tripping and we\u2019re loving it.<\/p>\n

9 \/ 10<\/strong><\/p>\n

Best tracks: <\/strong>\u201cTV Off\u201d, \u201cReincarnated\u201d, \u201cHey Now\u201d, \u201cMan at the Garden\u201d, \u201cSquabble Up\u201d, \u201cPeekaboo\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Personal and regional respect is earned on Lamar\u2019s sixth studio album, fuelled by rage, reflection and a fever to relish…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14044,"featured_media":932,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[10,9],"class_list":["post-742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-rss","tag-culture","tag-hip-hop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14044"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}