Intro

Kendrick Lamar A.K.A. Kung Fu Kenny (and K Dot) surprise dropped his ninth studio album on a calm Friday morning at 11:00 a.m. This quickly set off a rampant game of telephone across the whole world with fans spreading the news like wildfire. Followed with the iconic words, Kendrick dropped. 

Overview

Kendrick Lamar Duckworth originating from Compton, California is formerly a part of the rap collective Black Hippy that stemmed from Kendrick’s previous record label Top Dog Entertainment (TDE). Those members included Jay Rock, Ab-Soul, and ScHoolboy Q, who are all still signed to TDE. After Kendrick dropped his self-reflective magnum opus “Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers” in the spring of 2022, he decided to leave TDE and create his own record label called pgLang. Lamar proceeded to sign his cousin Baby Keem and L.A. native Tanna Leone to the label. 

This much-anticipated drop follows this year’s iconic rap beef between Kendrick Lamar and Drake, almost using a similar tone and cadence from the diss tracks that Lamar dropped in response to Drake’s initial shots. Nine diss tracks were dropped in the span of five weeks including “Push Ups,” “euphoria,” “Family Matters,” and “Not Like Us.” 

GNX runs off of the energy created after the rap beef by including West Coast boom-bap beats and sinister yet hungry Kendrick bars. He surrounds himself with L.A. natives on this record with features from the likes of Peysoh, hitta3, Lefty Gunplay, youngthreat, and Dody6. Longtime collaborator and TDE member SZA shows up on the record twice, on tracks “luther” and “gloria,” with her elegant and angelic voice. 

Birth of a classic

The whole album concept itself is a huge analogy to what standard Kendrick holds himself to. He uses the album cover and title as an opportunity to compare himself to Drake on a deeper level. The GNX sports the cover and title of the album as it has long historical ties with K Dot, his father drove him home from the hospital in one of these models. Kendrick preferred to showcase this in contrast to Drake’s identity and favorite cars. Drake paraded around a Ferrari on one of his tours, symbolizing his luxurious and mainstream identity. 

On the other hand, the GNX serves as a token for the gritty and versatile West Coast rap genre and how it can be an underdog to the mainstream genres. GNX infamously was faster than all the other luxurious and fast car brands by 0.4 seconds proving that you don’t need any fancy car to go fast. This serves as another analogy to comparing these two artists as Kendrick claims he is the better of the two without being a sellout or industry puppet. 

Setting the tone

GNX opens up with “wacced out murals,” an aggressive and dark beat follows Kendrick’s harsh vocals as he raps to the audience about where he’s been and how he’s been doing. The track along with most of the other songs on the record starts with the mariachi singer Deyra Barrera and her vocals. These song intros serve as a recurring motif and soundbite to show up all over the record and remind the listeners what album in Kendrick’s discography they are listening to just based off of Spanish lyrics. 

Kendrick walks us through how he views love and hate in the industry and uses an analogy like someone messing with his mural or crossing it out. He expresses that this hatred from seemingly lost hip-hop fans doesn’t bother him because of what he had to go through to reach this peak in his life. 

This song is a deeply introspective narrative intertwined with sharp critiques of industry norms and personal betrayals. Kendrick is flaunting his celebrity status and his successes but also backing it up with reasons on why he deserves it all and doubling down on his arrogance. He also revisits his rivalry with Drake calling out the artist for receiving false praise and how that correlates to artists losing focus on the art. 

Kendrick also exposes the potholes in the industry and how they highlight harmful figures just to turn a profit. Kendrick tries to portray himself as an outsider from the usual corrupt industry, and into a new torchbearer for the next generation of artists to focus on the essence of the art instead of the inauthenticity of pumping out billboard hits just for money.

Lamar refocuses on themes of vengeance and betrayal by mentioning Drake’s “TaylorMade Freestyle” subliminal diss track towards Lamar that used AI voice lines from the likes of Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg. This offended Kendrick because he believes Drake was tarnishing the legacy of hip hop’s biggest West Coast figures by turning their AI voices into a coherent song for no apparent reason. Kendrick expressed his frustration with Snoop Dogg over the issue when Snoop reposted the song giving it praise.

Lamar also outlined his feelings toward another idol betrayal when Lil Wayne was upset Kendrick was picked for the Super Bowl halftime show in New Orleans.

Lamar reflects on how people tend to love and hate people or artists even from their own town like when they vandalized his mural in Sept. of 2024. He employs the murals as a dual symbol, representing both his cultural contributions and the criticism he has received, especially from within his own community. 

Deep dive

Moving on to the hit song of the entire record “squabble up”, Kendrick finally drops the snippet that was at the end of the “Not Like Us” music video, almost taking the same cadence and flow from that West Coast anthem. This captivating single is similar to “tv off” with the well-known West Coast producer Mustard. The L.A. native producer has credits on “hey now” as well. This song features underground Compton rapper Dody6 who offers a gritty and humble twist on the record, forcing mainstream fans to ask the question, “Who is this guy, and where did he come from?”

Mustard implements a hypnotic breath rhythm for the beat followed by hard 808s and a West Coast flow from Kendrick. Dody6 jumps in halfway through the song with a line that I have been screaming almost every time I play the track, “who the f*** I feel like? I feel like Joker?” This line perfectly encapsulates the vibe of this song almost like a black Air Force One menace-type anthem to bump whenever you’re feeling devious. 

Similarly, the track “tv off” gives off the same anthem vibe with iconic one-liners from K Dot including “MUSTARD” and “Turn this tv off” or “All I ever wanted was a Black Grand National”. Obviously the track ends with a mysterious yet very influential L.A. gangster rapper Lefty Gunplay and his repeated sinister vocals “crazy, scary, spooky, hilarious” to cap off the viral song. This song transitions into the most underrated song on the record and that is “dodger blue” featuring Wallie the Sensei, Siete7x, and Roddy Rich. All four Compton born rappers absolutely body this beat and make it into a West Coast dance anthem with the dreamy lines “tiptoe pivot walk” guiding listeners to join in on the classic West Coast dance style. It’s a very calm yet punchy way to dance and the song matches that dance style perfectly.

Over in L.A., Kendrick and the rest of the members of TDE threw a Christmas toy drive followed by a concert. The charity event delivered over $750,000 worth of toys to families in need of Christmas spirit. Kids were all around dancing to Kendrick’s new album, truly highlighting the impact Lamar has on the youth of Los Angeles. 

Hidden gems

Even though this record only contains 12 tracks, some can get lost in the shuffle or even overshadowed by the hits. “heart pt. 6” is a perfect example as it offers some of the best choruses and production on the album, yet won’t get recognized in the way other big hits will in the realm of streaming numbers. The vulnerability in this record follows his troubles within himself after he decided to leave his record label TDE. He goes through all the years and memories of when he was united with all his rap homies and moving up the ranks in the industry together.

The central theme of this song Kendrick is trying to convey is hidden in the chorus “use your heart and not your eyes,” which means to follow your passion no matter what is in your way. K Dot describes the studio environment of a TDE session and how he was influenced by TDE rapper Ab-Soul’s rapping ability and admits he took inspiration from him stylistically. We also learn that TDE rapper ScHoolboy Q didn’t even start as a rapper and learned from his other members. 

Kendrick also reveals, “Sounwave let me borrow his clothes for shows as a hype man, to cook up in this room ‘til the night ends.” This is intriguing because who would’ve guessed our generation’s biggest rapper started as a hype man for Sounwave while wearing the producer’s clothes who would soon create most of his big hits. Truly highlighting Kendrick’s humble beginnings and authentic love for his roots. Another hidden gem that stood out to me was “reincarnated” and its tendency to keep pulling me in to listen to it. This song has a lot packed into three main verses including three different character changes by Lamar showing the world how versatile Kendrick can get creatively. 

He starts with a fiery statement bar, stating he becomes a new person each day through his mistakes, his traumatic experiences, and his accomplishments. Therefore, he is reincarnated into a new version of himself literally and figuratively. He battles this concept by telling two stories of what he believes are his “past lives” but are really just tragic stories about deceased artists that misuse their power and fame, something Kendrick is terribly paranoid about. The first verse, he raps in the perspective of blues musician John Lee Hooker and how he misused his fame for his personal greed and gluttony. Pointing out the fact that he died with lots of lies to his name including the numbers of his music sales. Kendrick then transitions into the next verse by shouting “REINCARNATED,” symbolizing the shift to another life that he must overcome and learn from to reincarnate into a better person once again.

Kendrick then raps in the point of view of singer Billie Holiday, said to be the best jazz vocalist of all time. Holiday suffered from addiction which then caused her death. Finally, Kendrick reincarnates once more to become himself again, Kung Fu Kenny. He explains that he is a reincarnation of these two lives and many more. But, he doesn’t want to continue their mistakes and sins but rather do the opposite and redeem his legacy. He wants to fight these demons within himself and not fall to the stereotypical vices that industry stars tend to abuse to death.

Earthshaking collaborations with SZA

Lamar’s collaborations with SZA go way back to the TDE days that lasted from 2005 to 2022 when Kendrick was strictly tied to all the label’s artists. These patterns are still evident as Kendrick continues to team up with TDE members for the new era of his rap career at pgLang, the label he co-founded with his cousin Baby Keem. The two mega hits due to SZA’s angelic vocal presence on the record are “luther” and “gloria” which both go down a more melodic and jazzy sound path.

The song “luther” samples the late great Luther Vandross and his single with Cheryl Lynn “If This World Were Mine.” SZA and Kendrick treat this beat like an intertwined duet with both artists fighting for the limelight of the microphone. The back-and-forth lullaby ends up sounding beautiful the way these two artists were meshing their lyrics together all while showing homage to the R&B legend Luther Vandross. In turn, this caused my brain to never stop playing this song in my head, making it my personal favorite off of the album. 

The other deep cut that is placed last on the album is Kendrick and SZA’s “gloria”. Kendrick walks us through a story of how he found his sound and lyricism through the trials and tribulations of his celebrity life. Kendrick describes a potential woman who outlines all the boxes of a wife or girlfriend but is soon revealed to be his pen that he writes his raps with. Almost a double entendre of meaning, as he reveals his inner struggles. The word gloria itself is a symbol for what Kendrick strives towards, almost a divine figure or a wave of enlightenment that Kenny is looking for. He explains that the combination of his inner demons and his constant chase for moral high ground contributes to his self-reflective ideologies and battles. 

He seeks redemption in confession and almost points towards his faith with the way he combines with Barrera’s Spanish vocals. This symbolizes the Catholic faith and its connection to Spanish culture and how it can transcend languages to portray the indomitable human spirit. Kendrick’s constant ability to connect and call back to references or double meanings is so impressive that he named this song “gloria” because the pen he writes all his raps with, is literally a brand called Gloria and they make $200 pens. This song serves as a perfect finale to close out the album. 

Conclusion

“GNX” turned out to be a very enjoyable album to me and I will be listening to it a lot. Therefore, this album scores a 10/10 from me. This is to no surprise as I believe Kendrick already has released multiple 10/10 albums throughout his career.

“GNX” solidifies itself in Kendrick’s discography as it is filled with stellar production and mean new flows. It will be very exciting to see what Kendrick does with the Super Bowl 59 halftime show and how he will implement these new absolute bangers.