Last month, on the heels of the news that he would be headlining the Super Bowl halftime show, Kendrick Lamar was interviewed by SZA for Harper’s Bazaar. “You have such Father Time energy,” she told him. “It’s very universal-dad vibes. Actually, it’s more universal sensei.” SZA is right, and her understanding of the man widely considered the greatest rapper alive is probably what keeps the labelmates working together so often; she features on his new album, GNX, twice. She is a person he feels comfortable waxing poetic and philosophic with, a kindred spirit to explore questions of love, war, and responsibility.
GNX sees Lamar step into the dad role in a new way; not so much with the introspection about his own family as on his last effort, 2022’s Mr. Morale And The Big Steppers, but as the face of rap music in 2024, the king of the West Coast, and the commander of a small army of fellow musicians from his native Compton. He talks about his car, a black Buick GNX and the physical representation of his success, a lot. He teams with producer Mustard (collaborator on the inescapable “Not Like Us”) and Jack Antonoff to make an album that sounds celebratory and massive. This summer’s rap beef with Drake came to an end when Lamar injected his lacerating bars with wicked glee, then rallied California to repeat them together at June’s Pop Out concert. On GNX, the emcee sounds like he’s having a lot of fun even when he’s pontificating.
On album opener “Wacced Out Murals,” Lamar addresses the elephant (read: the year’s headline-grabbing controversies) in the room. (“Used to bump Tha Carter III, I held my Rollie chain proud/Irony, I think my hard work let Lil Wayne down,” he raps, in passing, of the whole Super Bowl discourse.) In September, his mural in Compton was defaced in the fallout from the beef with Drake; here, Lamar uses it as an opportunity to impart some sage wisdom to those who look up to him. “Keep your head down and work like I do,” he raps, “But understand everybody ain't gon' like you.” By “Man In The Garden” three tracks later, Lamar mentions that he has “One hundred murals out in Compton.” He has a lot more fans than doubters, and he has them where it matters.
Lamar is well aware of his status as a role model, and it’s a responsibility he takes seriously. Being an artist and the sacrifice required to be a great one is a recurring theme throughout GNX. On the SZA-featuring closer “Gloria,” Lamar speaks of his process as one of the loves of his life, the thing that’s been a constant since adolescence. Deats’ and Sounwave’s production here is absolutely gorgeous, one of a handful of tracks that nod to 1970s-style slow jams to great effect. “Luther” builds on a sample of Luther Vandross (and another vocal feature from SZA, which never hurts) and is perhaps the most beautiful moment on the record. Album centerpiece “Reincarnated” imagines Lamar as the next iteration of two talented artists who came before him—one who was not charitable and one who succumbed to addiction. (Online speculation has concluded he's talking about John Lee Hooker and Billie Holliday.) He places himself in this lineage to learn from them and to avoid the same pitfalls.
But for a Kendrick Lamar album, this feels like pretty light subject matter. Lamar has never really eschewed making pop (“You can have that one big record, but you can still have that integrity at the same time. Not many can do it,” he told Rolling Stone in 2017. “Wink-wink.”). But here, there is a sense of giving the people what they want, which has not always been a given. “TV Off,” a two-sectioned Mustard production, is a delirious few minutes of the king talking his shit. It sounds enormous. “Dodger Blue,” one of the requisite tributes to Los Angeles, channels the sound of funk becoming new jack swing à la Guy or Mint Condition, the era that made up Lamar’s first few years of life. It’s a look back at the past that feels more evocative of a mood than of some deep catharsis. (Sonically, Antonoff has become the go-to guy for that sort of thing.) But it’s another element that places Lamar as the father figure; on this song, as on “Peekaboo” and “GNX,” he is platforming younger rappers just beginning to build audiences outside of Compton.
This is the job of a pop star ensuring their legacy. It’s an attitude of nurturing artists who may well end up his future competition but are making everyone better along the way. GNX depicts a version of masculinity that, though traditional, is rooted in honor, duty, and truth. “Heart Pt. 6,” the latest in his long-running series (which Drake unsuccessfully tried to preemptively taint during this spring’s feud) is perhaps the album’s greatest introspection, seeing Lamar own his past failures as he looks to the future. Then, he speaks directly to the generation behind him: “Let me be the demonstration/How to conduct differences with a healthy conversation/If that's your family, then handle it as such.” It’s a simple conceit, but a moving one. GNX is about operating from a place of intention. Families can joke and they can hurt, but ultimately, they must care.
