Lamar and Dave Free executive produced the album, which features appearances from AzChike, Dody6, Hitta J3, Peysoh, Roddy Ricch, Siete7x, SZA, Wallie the Sensei, and YoungThreat; Deyra Barrera, Sam Dew, and Ink provide additional vocal contributions throughout.[1][2] Production was primarily handled by Sounwave and Jack Antonoff, with additional work by Mustard, Sean Momberger, and Kamasi Washington, among others. The album was released to critical acclaim.
Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers was Lamar's last album with Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE), to which he had signed in 2005.[9] Before his feud with Canadian rapper Drakere-escalated,[10] he quietly departed from Aftermath Entertainment and signed a direct licensing agreement with its distributor, Interscope Records.[11][note 1] Lamar released five standalone singles during the latest installment of their conflict, including the Billboard Hot 100-toppers "Like That" and "Not Like Us".[12][13] The rapper teased a then-untitled song in the beginning of the music video for the latter. Entertainment Weekly observed its inclusion and fan speculation that it could be included in his next album; the song was revealed to be "Squabble Up".[14]
Rumors surrounding Lamar's forthcoming album began to emerge, with some being denied by close affiliates.[15] After announcing that he was chosen as the headlining act for the Super Bowl LIX halftime show,[16] Lamar surprise released "Watch the Party Die" on his Instagram account. Rolling Stone said that the track bodes well for his next album–"whenever it comes".[17]Dazed, on the other hand, predicted that he was gearing up for an "astronomical" era.[18] By October, Lamar's longtime collaborators Terrace Martin, SZA, and Schoolboy Q confirmed that he would be releasing new music.[19][20][21]
Songs and composition
GNX consists of 12 songs and has a running time of 44 minutes and 20 seconds; the shortest studio album of Lamar's career.[22] Although no tracks from his feud with Drake are included, its sentiment "still looms over the album", according to Vulture.[23] It is a West Coast hip hop album,[24][25] drawing on both classic and contemporary conventions of the genre.[26] According to Rolling Stone, the album is a tribute to Lamar's native Los Angeles, prominently infusing G-funk throughout its compositions.[27]
The Mexican singer Deyra Barrera is featured on both opening and closing tracks of the album, as well as in "Reincarnated", after Lamar saw the singer perform at a Los Angeles Dodgers game.[28] The production team played Barrera the instrumentation arrangements, and gave her a description of the emotions Lamar wanted to evoke throughout the album.[29] "Reincarnated" sees Lamar present himself in imagined past lives before the lyrics transition to him having a conversation with God.[25] "TV Off" features "clipped strings" that "dissolve into Viking-berserker horns" halfway through.[30] As the percussion of the second part fades in, Lamar is heard "animatedly" screaming Mustard's name; this has since became an Internet meme.[31][32] On "Heart Pt. 6", he recounts his history with TDE and the supergroup Black Hippy, acknowledging his role in the group falling apart due to creative differences.[33]Ben Sisario of The New York Times noted that it is an "implicit rejoinder" to Drake's diss track of the same name, which in itself was taken from Lamar's "The Heart" song series.[34] The title track, "GNX", is a posse cut with Los Angeles rappers Peysoh, Hitta J3 and YoungThreat. Lamar does not have a verse, instead providing a hook questioning "who put the West back in front of shit?"[25][35]
Promotion and release
On November 22, 2024, Lamar unexpectedly premiered a one-minute teaser for GNX on YouTube and Instagram.[34][36] The album was surprise released through PGLang and Interscope 30 minutes later.[37][38]
Upon release, GNX received widespread acclaim from music critics.[48][49][50] On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized score out of 100 to ratings from mainstream publications, the album received a weighted mean score of 86 based on 14 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[39]
Various reviews considered GNX a victory lap for Lamar after his hip-hop feuds throughout 2024.[40][47][51][52] Critics who praised the album's tributes to West Coast hip hop and Lamar's abilities to distill various elements to create a cohesive record include Exclaim!'s Wesley McLean[26] and Variety's Peter Berry.[53]Paste's Matt Mitchell upheld the album as a reimagination of rap's future and Lamar's past,[45] and NME's Kyann-Sian Williams was impressed by the warm storytelling that acted as a palette cleanser after the diss tracks and loathing that had dominated the hip hop scene.[44] Williams contended that GNX is an "easy contender for the rap album of 2024",[44] and Tom Breihan of Stereogum hailed it as the year's best record and Lamar's greatest yet.[30]
Many critics focused on Lamar's self-depiction as a driving cultural force in hip hop. Alexis Petridis of The Guardian commented that GNX found Lamar at his most confrontational, "deferring only to God".[43] In The Line of Best Fit, Matthew Kim described it as "a concise statement of regional pride, braggadocio, and non-conformity", crediting Jack Antonoff's production for making the album feel "lush and expansive".[25]Rolling Stone's Mosi Reeves felt that GNX provided more than sufficient explanations for why Lamar is the "GOAT of 2024" but not answers to a bigger cultural question of structural changes in hip hop, labelling the album "yet another treatise on hip-hop corporatism".[47]
In a mixed review from Pitchfork, Alphonse Pierre wrote that the album's supposed authenticity was blemished by Lamar's "heavy-handed, brand-conscious narrative", highlighting the production that is "too clean and synthetic", although his delivery remained stellar and the musical guests were memorable.[46] In congruence, Will Hodgkinson of The Times shared his disappointment towards Lamar's self-aggrandizement that deviated from his intellectually provocative themes on past albums, despite the "frequently exceptional" production and flow.[54]Jon Caramanica of The New York Times considered Lamar's tribute to his California roots somewhat a retreat to his "comfort zone", calling the album "impressive but slight".[55]
Commercial performance
GNX earned over 44.2 million first-day streams on the global Spotify chart, averaging over 3.6 million streams per song despite being available only seven hours prior.[56] It also simultaneously occupied the top 2 on the US Spotify charts, with "Squabble Up" being at number one with 3.272 million streams.[57]
^Pre-GNX releases under this deal hold the copyright notice "Kendrick Lamar under exclusive license to Interscope Records" which means that Lamar himself owns ultimate copyrights for those recordings; however on GNX, it says "pgLang under exclusive license to Interscope Records", thus meaning the deal was renegotiated, and Lamar's own management company, PGLang, is now set as an ultimate copyright owner for all official post-"Not Like Us" releases.
