Oh, it seems like just yesterday, but it was really last summer when Drake was on top of the world. I had gone to see him at Capital One Arena and it was probably one of the most energy laden shows I had ever been to. The line to get in was three blocks around the corner, each merch booth was filled with willing customers, and he even brought out Shy Glizzy. Throughout the night, he and 21 Savage interchanged their favorite hits to a roaring crowd…

The Grand National was a car developed by Ron Yuille manufactured by Buick. It is considered a staple in many car enthusiast communities, especially those on the West Coast, so it isn’t a surprise that Kendrick Lamar used that as a basis for his new album’s cover. Also, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the GNX was developed in 1987, the same year that Kendrick was born and unlike his now generational enemy Drake, the GNX only comes in one color…black.  

On November 24, the hip hop community was surprised with the release of a 60 second trailer for a new Kendrick Lamar project that showed him performing an unreleased song. If only we knew that around 20 minutes later, group chats and social media would be set on fire and the collective hip hop community would be caught on its heels when we realized the entire project had been released on streaming platforms, surprisingly not including the song that was included on the trailer (we will get back to that).

At first I thought it was some troll releasing some type of mash up album and then it was confirmed by my groupchats that this was real, and then further confirmed by Kendrick Lamar’s Twitter, which has probably the best Tweet run maybe ever. 

I waited until the end of my remote workday to listen to the project and properly digest it, even if that meant dodging social media to prevent myself from seeing spoilers and commentary on the album so I could soak it in with a fresh mind. But when I finally got the time to do that, it definitely felt cinematic – shoutout to the engineers on this album, because it sounds amazing and pristine whether you’re listening to it in a car or on your headphones. The sound is reflective of what the songs intended to do in whatever moment – for example the bass in “hey now” or the spookiness and tone of the Tupac sample used in “reincarnated.” The album is just sonically polished, which is no surprise, because Kendrick is using his longtime producer Sounwave.  

The most talked about track was “wacced out murals,” which has Kendrick delivering essentially a prologue of what has happened since his legendary melee with Drake and some of the reasons why that battle escalated as much as did it with these lines: 

“N*****s from my city couldn’t entertain old boy

Promising’ bank transactions and even bitcoin 

I never peaced it up, that shit don’t sit well with me. 

Before I take a true, I’ll take ‘em to Hell with me 

If that money got in the hands of a crash dummy 

Could jeopardize my family and burden the ones who love me”

 He also talks about the shady reactions from some of his most decorated rap idols regarding the beef and his future Super Bowl halftime performance, specifically targeting Snoop and Lil Wayne:

“Used to bump Tha Carter III, I held my Rollie chain proud

Irony, I think my hard work let Lil wayne down

Whatever, though, call me crazy, everybody questionable

Turn me to an eskimo, I drew the line and decimals

Snoop posted “Taylor Made,” I prayed it was the edibles

I couldn’t believe it, it was only right for me to let it go

Won the Super Bowl and Nas the only one congratulate me

All these n*****s agitated, I’m just glad they showin’ faces”

Obviously, Kendrick was annoyed with Snoop’s befuddling approval of Drake’s now infamous AI song “Taylor Made,” which uses Snoop and Tupac’s voice to recite lyrics over a traditional West Coast Dr. Dre style beat and, more recently, the Super Bowl performance announcement, which should have been heralded by the rap community but was the source of major discourse, with fans and peers stating that Lil Wayne should have gotten that opportunity since this year’s Super Bowl will be in New Orleans (which is an absolutely ludicrous argument, because there have only been a handful of times where hometown artists got to perform in their city’s Super Bowl, and also a if you look at a lot of Lil Wayne’s recent performances he’s forgetting lyrics and they leave a lot to be desired).  

This would fan another fire unintentionally with Wayne making this post regarding the references to his name in the song which, to be fair, wasn’t necessarily a diss. Then there were rumors from the Joe Budden Podcast that Lil Wayne called Kendrick and the call was not answered, prompting Wayne to go into the booth and possibly draft up a response to Kendrick’s claims. If Wayne’s response ever sees the light of day, I hope he doesn’t poke the boogeyman that Kendrick clearly illustrates that he is on GNX.  Because if he does, we might be saying goodbye to one of our most heralded rap GOATs similar to Wesley Snipes shooting G-Money at the end of New Jack City.  

While that track was one of the most controversial, the project has a lot more highlights and legs beyond that. There is the now de facto West Coast anthem, “squabble up,” which was previewed at the beginning of the “Not Like Us” in a ten second snippet that was so infectious that it was being looped by fans and being put on YouTube. But the track is aggressive and undoubtedly West Coast, using a Debbie Deb’s “When I Hear Music” sample that sounds like a mixture of cholo lowride culture and classic 80s rap that would have been played at a World Class Wreckin’ Cru concert. It was later accompanied by a video directed by frequent Kendrick collaborator, Calmatic, that includes so many West Coast cultural easter eggs and pays proper homage to The Roots “The Next Movement” video. Now, the song can be seen in everything from NBA commercials to the Wayans family Tiktok.

I think Kendrick had heard the specific criticism of The Pop Out from naysayers *cough* DJ Akademiks *cough* saying he would never work with any of the artists that performed at the show and set out to prove them wrong by working with the most underground and street artists in LA. Most of these artists at first glance seem like people that would not fit into the same musical world as Kendrick. But to Kendrick’s credit he is way more tapped into what’s happening in not only rap culture but LA culture as well then the general public gives him credit for, utilizing features from artists like Dody6, Lefty Gunplay, Hitta J3, Walli the Sensei and others to compliment the sonics and production of the project. These features on GNX will ultimately have a long lasting positive effect for these up and coming LA rappers and they will have a real life example to look toward on how to make a quality project with quality production. Outside of those local LA features, Kendrick teams up with frequent collaborator SZA for “luther” and “gloria,” two standout tracks that implement popular samples in a way that isn’t lazy but also manages to not butcher them.  

The album and the videos from the project are filled with interesting easter eggs for the listeners and viewers with more of a keen eye, the most notable one being that GNX might be a double disc album – look at the video trailer with not one but two GNXs and the song that was used in the trailer was not on the album. There are also visual references in the “squabble up” video to Nate Dogg’s G-Funk Classics and Issac Hayes’ Black Moses, both double albums. While a lot of the album feels like the sonic equivalent of someone going 100 MPH down the 710 Compton freeway with all of the shots at rappers and the production of a lot of the songs, the easter eggs are layered in the verses as well, which we see with the song “reincarnated,” which samples the Tupac song “Made N*****z”. He effortlessly weaves in and out of verses referencing troubled singers through the lens of them being the devil and talking to God. A chef’s kiss for executing this concept properly.

While GNX is a strong body of work that digs deep into the creative backpack of Kendrick Lamar, including “heart pt. 6,” which uses an SWV sample that was produced by Pharrell in the 90s, which might be a lunatic reference to the Pusha T beef which started when Birdman didn’t pay Pharrell for the “What Happened to that Boy” beat, which talks about the very beginning of TDE through a lens that pays reverence to their legacy and talks about how they grew into their own as artists but also grew apart. Or the infectious street records like “peekaboo” or “gnx” that take the best styles of recents West Coast hood lyricists like Drakeo the Ruler and build something that is different from the rest of Kendrick’s discography. The most infectious moment from the album that has been on a constant loop in most Kendrick fans’ brains is “MUUUUUUUUUUUUUSTARD!!” This one yelled phrase has  everyone in the hip zeitgeist collectively a headlock.  It sounds like Kendrick just saw Krillin die and his only way to avenge him was to go Super Saiyan by saying “MUUUUUUUUUSTARD!!” It has become so popular that Heinz, yes the Heinz that makes ketchup and mustard, is using the phrase for a billboard campaign. I like to think that the inception of the lyric from Kendrick went something like the RDC Mark video and he talked to himself like Golem from Lord of the Rings where his alternate darker personality is telling him to say it louder and more aggressive.  

As we can see throughout this album, there is musicality, soulfulness, great production but most importantly, there is unbridled hatred that powers it. An unbridled hate that is not just for the hatred of a person for shallow reasons such as fashion choices and making duck lips into the camera with berets on. It is the unbridled hate for someone who wants to completely napalm the roots of everything that one person (Drake) represents, whether it be conveniently colonizing other hot cultures and adopting their cultural identity as some type of outfit that could be bought at Saks Fifth or thinking he is impervious to criticism about his lack of music that takes into account what is happening with society or how he is maturing personally. This unbridled hate is what might be needed to take the culture of hip hop to the next level. This unbridled hate might be what is needed to unite an entire coast. This unbridled hate might be what is needed to show an entire generation what it means to stand by the principles on which you build your music.  This unbridled hate might be what is needed to “watch the party die”.