There is no feeling quite like revenge—and that is a fact Kendrick Lamar knows all too well. In the past few years, the LA rapper went from only being known for insulting Drake’s legacy and getting away with it — all while scoring two #1 Billboard hits, earning a Super Bowl performance, and getting the whole world on his side in the first half of 2024 alone. In the years between, he has experienced a meteoric rise to fame despite everyone who doubted him from the start. To cap off years of getting revenge on his naysayers culminating this year, Kendrick has finally released his long-awaited sixth studio album—“GNX.”
On the surface, “GNX” is already a fantastic album. It may not have a strong underlying theme like his past work, though tracks like “reincarnated” and “gloria” seem to be much more thematically complex than they let on, but the songs on the tracklist might have proven to be his most infectious yet. It cannot be denied that the ascent of songs like “squabble up”, “tv off”, and “luther” to the top of the charts is due in part to Kendrick rapping over hard-hitting minimalist beats inspired by the West Coast.
It would be dismissive to say “GNX” does not have anything to say beyond the surface, though. Remember, Kendrick has held the limelight for all of 2024 — but not without slandering some names in the process, a fact that Kendrick revisits on many of the album’s tracks. Most notably, the song “wacced out murals” sees him expressing his disappointment for the rap industry, calling out rap legends like Lil Wayne and Snoop Dogg for turning their backs on Kendrick as he looked up to them.
He also fires back at fans of rap, with the title of the aforementioned “wacced out murals” referring to an incident of people who vandalized a mural of Kendrick in his hometown of Compton. The track “man at the garden” builds on this by telling all of his haters that he has worked hard to deserve all of his success. He even reignites the competitive spark between him and Drake through subtle jabs on songs like “hey now” and having a song on the album title “heart pt. 6” — even though Drake had already released a song of the same name that insulted Kendrick, implying Kendrick flat-out ignored Drake’s hateful responses. All in all, Kendrick uses “GNX” to deviate from his previously introspective and self-deprecating albums, saying that the problem is no longer within himself but in the hateful and incompetent minds of the world around him plaguing the rap industry he loves.
But “GNX” is far from just hate. If anything, the West-Coast inspired minimalist beats should immediately cue people in that the album is also a love letter to Los Angeles and the rap community that came from it. The song “dodger blue” makes that sentiment very clear from the title alone, but this effort even extends to featuring unpopular yet talented artists from LA like Deyra Barrera, Dody 6, AzChike, Peysoh, Hitta J3, and YoungThreat on songs like “hey now”, “peekaboo”, and the title track “gnx”. After all, the insults thrown at Kendrick’s legacy in 2024 included claims that he didn’t support the community he came from — his choice to prove them wrong on this album shows his continuing efforts to grow and improve both as a public figure and as a person.
So, does “GNX” live up to the eventful year in rap that preceded it? That is up to the listeners to decide, but one cannot deny that in the meager 44 minutes this album runs for, Kendrick speaks volumes about why his revenge on his naysayers matters — for respect of rap, for respect of his hometown, and, perhaps most importantly, for respect of himself. As he says in the song “tv off”, “f*ck being rational, give ‘em what they asked for.” And that is exactly what he did.
