Album Review: GNX by Kendrick Lamar

Crazy, scary, spooky, hilarious All I ever wanted was a Black Grand National *** being rational, give 'em what they ask for The closing moments of Kendrick Lamar's last album, 2022's Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, put a bow on its exploration of trauma and healing by confronting his savior complex head-on with the refrain, "I choose me/I'm sorry." The preceding five years were plagued with writer's block and setbacks of both the professional and personal variety, making this apology seem like a line was being drawn in the sand for how far he could go without losing his mind. If he couldn't save everyone, he could at least make good on saving himself.

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On Friday, the always enigmatic artist posted a one-minute video snippet on YouTube, sending fans into a frenzy. Social media was instantly abuzz, doling out hopes that it meant that his next album was on the horizon-- little did everyone know, that album would arrive just 30 minutes later. Surprising fans with GNX, named for the Buick Regal model featured on the album's artwork, Lamar delivers his most concise release yet, clocking in at just over 44 minutes across its 12 tracks.

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Kendrick's response: a man who "has morals, he has values, he believes in something … He's a man who can recognize his mistakes … can dig deep down into fear-based ideologies …" I mean, what? Are we really going to let Kendrick Lamar get away with starting a rap feud over a compliment, calling his opponent a pedophilic, Harvey Weinstein-level sex criminal, and finally passing it all off as a movement for love and self-consciousness? While Kendrick Lamar's undisputed roundhousing of Drake was ostensibly a victory for Kendrick Lamar, perhaps it truly did symbolize more than that for him. Perhaps the defeat of the poster boy for today's uninspired rap mainstream symbolized not just a singular win but a victory for Lamar's perspective on rap itself. There's a reason he took his victory lap on a stage shared with regional Los Angeles rappers as he united the Pirus and Crips.

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Midway through his snarling Drake diss, "Not Like Us," Kendrick Lamar issued a succinct, but forceful personal mission: "Sometimes you gotta pop out and show n—as. " It was both a plan of action and a self-fulfilling mandate. Since then, he's won that rap beef in the most unequivocal terms imaginable: "Not Like Us" has been nominated for multiple Grammys, a rare diss track to achieve that status (ironically the last was Drake's Meek Mill swipe "Back to Back"), the peak of a six-song flurry, beginning with his guest verse of Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That,” that got just one response before its target conceded with silence.

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There we were, all starting to plan our annual Album of the Year countdowns… then BAM! A new project from one of the true modern greats and one of the most acclaimed artists of the last decade plus – none other than King Kendrick Lamar. Dropping ahead of his planned SuperBowl halftime show in February, ‘GNX’ immediately feels like a record for the fans. Where ‘Mr Morale & The Big Steppers’ was a more divisive project, a complex double album that saw Kendrick wrestling with guilt, grief and generational trauma, ‘GNX’ by comparison instantly feels much accessible.

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Kendrick Lamar starts his exhilarating new album by complaining that someone vandalized a mural depicting his face -- a mural depicting his face in triplicate, in fact -- on the side of a Honduran restaurant in his Compton hometown. Never mind that somebody cared enough about Lamar to paint the mural in the first place. What the 37-year-old rapper is pissed about is that this billboard-sized monument to his greatness was defaced.

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