Review Summary: 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. While that read probably isn’t totally off-base of his headspace at the time, old-habits die hard and that mantra may have proven a more literal eureka than intended: What if by choosing himself, he
can save everyone?
2024’s feud with Drake then became perhaps the most legendary musical proxy war ever, with the Stake affiliate serving as an avatar for everything that Kendrick felt disgusted by the world of music and culture. Make no mistake, there was plenty of bad blood between the two that came to a boil after simmering for nearly a decade, but throughout Kendrick’s contributions to the beef he would frequently speak directly to others -himself, God, individuals in Drake’s life, and even us (the audience)- in an effort to either justify or contextualize the war, as if to ask, “don’t you see how stupid this is?” One need not look further than the smash-hit capstone “Not Like Us” to get the point across: this is Us vs Them, and the “them” here is anyone who sucks and seeks to do harm. Without relitigating an entire play-by-play of the historic affair, the tactics at play were nothing short of diabolical by Kendrick, putting snickering, shadowy anime villains to shame with an almost-incomprehensible amount of forethought put into the rollout of his tracks. Drake’s character was dissected on a subatomic level, being read to absolute filth as a predator, cheater, liar, and lonely cornball. As someone who hates Drake, I may spend the rest of my life chasing the high that came from the first time I heard Kendrick clear his throat before telling Drake’s mom that her son was “a sick man, with sick thoughts” and that he should “die.” I did not know that a song could feel like a dutch angle in a psychological thriller, but I absolutely yelled the first time I heard “*** a rap battle/this a life long battle with yourself.” Compare that with the opposition pulling out short jokes and sticking by instantly verifiably false narratives, and this battle wasn’t even close; it was a blowout resembling 1916 Georgia Tech versus Cumberland.
Enter surprise-album
GNX.
Picking up right where the beef had, the album opens up with “wacced out murals,” a demonic sounding taunt with Drake’s head placed firmly on a spike as a trophy to warn any would-be challengers. While this introduction, with its eerily tinny synths and murky low-end, mostly serves as a Previously On… segment, it expands the mythology of the beef by continuing to call out the likes of other legends like Snoop Dogg and Lil Wayne for their mere spectatorship of the conflict for thinking the battle would ever be an actual contest. Their legend is to be respected, but you can hear Kendrick setting the new ground rules of his hard-earned kingdom: “Before I take a truce/I’ll take ‘em to hell with me”; “*** your hip-hop”; “*** a double-entendre, I want y’all to feel this ***.” It’s a loud, eery inauguration that gets the point across: you come at the king, you best not miss.
And yet, it’s also kind of a lie.
Once the formalities are out of the way,
GNX reveals itself to be a colorful, adventurous exploration of anger as comedy and California as myth. Much of the album revels in being instructive, rather than merely be conscious, commanding us to dance and sing. “Squabble Up” is a demand, and almost incomprehensible on initial scan. Worbly, wobbly synths complement a truly unhinged vocal performance from Kendrick, rattling off everything from harsh breaths to hilariously oscillating his voice as if he were being violently shaken while holding out extraneous syllables. There are so many blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moments -within the song’s opening moments you already have proclamations of reincarnation and a Kamasi Washington shoutout, of all people. “tv off” is a pseudo-sequel to “Not Like Us” that plays out in much the same manner, with some truly acrobatic flows and vocal takes that really flex Kendrick’s ability to be a little scamp, before melting into a triumphant second-half that is all its own with an instantly-iconic battlecry of “MUSTAAAAAAAAAARD!!!!!” and accompanying brass that will surely be a hit at his forthcoming Superbowl Halftime Show.
That willingness to be silly has always been buried within Kendrick’s DNA (recall, well, the ganja-production flip in “DNA” or the hilarious music video for “For Free? Interlude”), but it only truly had a chance to shine in his post-Covid outings. If you loved “Range Brothers,” you’ll be enamored with “Peekaboo,” which almost single-handedly redefines what a canon Kendrick song is capable of with a hook that functions just as much as an exhausting vocal exercise -there’s even a call back to
the Supahotfire! “hey now” sounds like a darkly sexy, uh, pacer test? The album’s title track is an insanely west-coast posse cut, hosting names I can confidently say I have never heard of. The song's refrain, “I’m trippin’ and I’m lovin’ it,” might be the best elevator pitch for the project's existence. You can practically hear Kendrick struggle to not break out into laughter when he utters those words in some absurd accent that sounds like a revival of one of the dozen or so characters he embodied in “Family Ties,” and you can tell he's having the time of his life getting whacky with it. It’s an obnoxious song that will likely filter a lot of people with its off-kilter piano, and an even odder choice to make the ostensible flagplant of the album. You either “get” it or don’t, and I happen to love it.
To be clear, while
GNX’s elastic soundscapes are far more playful and kinetic than usual, there is still a point here.Throughout the album’s relatively brief (and even briefer
feeling) runtime, Kendrick frequently finds himself weaving his own myth into the grand tapestry of black music. On “reincarnated,” he flips a Tupac sample into a heady exploration of the lives of Billie Holiday and Chuck Berry, before settling on a conversation with his own father (who is also God) about why he was sent to Earth to protect culture and community. It’s definitionally ridiculous and patently, capital-D Deep like some of the Kendrick songs of yore, but his flow and performance are once again in top form to deliver what is probably one of the best raps of the year in a year already full of great ones. “heart pt. 6” saves its namesake from being condemned to being remembered for being Drake’s white flag by acknowledging all of the people who came up with Kendrick in his career’s formative years. His much publicized split with TDE had a few lingering question marks, and this song goes a long way to clearing the air and cementing these ancillary characters as essential ones in his own story. “man at the garden” is a fairly self-aware slowburn that finds Kendrick thinking aloud why he, and he alone, deserves to be the one to guide the culture. The conclusion he comes to is a very human one that rounds back to what ultimately started this imperial phase to begin with: because nobody else can.
The eponymous car is mentioned throughout the album as a symbol of status and paradise. Kendrick’s white whale, it turns out, is a black car. But there it is. In his garage, keys in the ignition, ready to be taken for a spin.
GNX is the sound of an artist stepping into their power and the newfound freedom that comes without have to prove a damn thing. It’s a several-victory lap long coronation that serves as the perfect capstone to what was already a legendary year that shifted the entire rap hierarchy with just a handful of songs. There is no Big Three. There never really was. There’s just Kendrick Lamar, and then there’s everyone else.
