Without any warning, because he canyesterday Kendrick Lamar released his new album GNX. The name comes from the Buick seen on the cover, it is from 1987, the year Kendrick was born. The rapper who made the most important piece of the year, the one that may have given the final blow to a certain high-ranking rapper from Toronto, is one who pays attention to details and therefore disseminates as always Easter eggs which fans will analyze in the coming days. We can already say that now GNX is a love letter to Los Angeles, Kendrick's hometown. The LA sound, full as it is of G-Funk, dominates the record, which is produced by a small circle of collaborators including Mustard, who worked on Not Like Usand Jack Antonoff, behind some of the biggest pop albums on the planet. Kendrick manages to find a balance between their sensibilities in songs with mainstream appeal, but always centered on the unique sound of Los Angeles.
GNX is full of things to analyze, from the possible response to comments on Kendrick's Super Bowl performance announcement to his feud with Drake. Here are the first things that emerge from listening.
Jack Antonoff's production
Earlier this year Jack Antonoff and Kendrick Lamar collaborated on 6:16 in LAthe second diss of the feud with Drake. Antonoff, who came from The Tortured Poets Department by Taylor Swift and her album with Bleachers, he got his hands on the piece together with Sounwave, a longtime collaborator of Top Dawg Entertainment. Now they both appear in 11 of the 12 songs on GNX. Sounwave and Antonoff share production credits with the likes of Mustard, M-Tech and Lamar himself.
Antonoff is essentially a pop producer – his other major release this year, for example Short n' Sweet by Sabrina Carpenter – and then in GNX he moves into unexplored terrain for him. The piece in which his mark is most evident is Dodger Blue where he meets Sam Dew, co-author of the song. With him and Soundwave he launched the Red Hearse project in 2019. They released an album together and found each other again Lavender Haze by Taylor Swift (Sounwave and Antonoff also co-wrote and co-produced Karma without Dew).
“Jack and I keep each other informed about our projects,” Sounwave said in 2022. “We usually take at least a week a year to create something together, without any specific goal in mind.” And if there's anyone who knows what Lamar is looking for, it's Sounwave. They began collaborating since the rapper's first mixtapes. In the words of Terrence “Punch” Henderson, president of TDE, «if you say Kendrick, you say Sounwave. The first mentions an idea and the second finishes it. He glues everything together, he always adds the thing Kendick needs.” (LP)
Kendrick mentions Lil Wayne and the Super Bowl controversy
Many thought Kendrick Lamar was the logical choice for the next Super Bowl halftime show because he is a chart-topping artist with a long catalog behind him. But some, like Nicki Minaj and Birdman, that for this very reason Lil Wayne should have been chosen for a set at the performance in New Orleans, his hometown. Wayne expressed his disappointment at not receiving support from NFL-affiliated friend Jay-Z, going so far as to tell the crowd at his Lil Weezyana festival that he had been “robbed” of the moment. Kendrick then rapped about it in Wacced Out Murals: “I grew up with Tha Carter IIIholding my chain with pride / Ironically, I think my hard work let Lil Wayne down.” Kendrick has always had a certain reverence towards Wayne, even going so far as to beg him (drunkenly) not to retire in 2016. But sometimes idols become rivals. (AG)
Kendrick finds the groove with a series of eclectic samples
In many ways, GNX it's a mix of feelings, ideas and sounds, filled with a rather refreshing series of samples and interpolations. Squabble Up samples Debbie Deb's classic '80s freestyle When I Hear Music And The Heart Pt. 6 boasts a sugary sample of Use Your Heart by SWV, the girl group that achieved success in the '90s with a song that it also sampled If It Don't Turn You On (You Oughta Leave It Alone) by the '70s funk collective BT Express. In Luther the voice of the late R&B legend Luther Vandross takes center stage, culled from his participation on Cherl Lynn's 1982 version of If This World Were Minea cover of a song by Marvin Gaye and Tammy Terrell. (MC)
There is room for the Música Mexicana of Los Angeles
GNX opens with the voice of Deyra Barrera, a mariachi singer from Los Angeles, featured in Wacced Out Murals. Reached by Rolling StoneBarrera was still in shock about being featured on the album, even the Tupac tribute Reincarnated and in the conclusion Glory. “It gives me goosebumps thinking about it, it all happened so quickly,” he said. «It's magical. I feel like crying.” Lamar has never given up on honoring Los Angeles' Mexican roots, even in his videos Not Like Us And Family Matterswhere he posed with a mariachi sombrero. (TM)
When Kendrick works with Mustard it's magic
When Kendrick Lamar released Not Like Usthe chemistry between K Dot and Mustard, who produced the song, was strong enough to force a sort of realignment of the world order. In the standout tracks of GNX, Hey Now And TV Offthe two team up once again and prove that they could very well make a generational rapper/producer duo. In fact, both songs highlight the synergy of the couple. Mustard's production, with its bouncy, swinging bass, gives Kendrick the perfect platform to let loose. TV Offin particular, feels like a spiritual sequel to Not Like Usand perhaps it has the same possibility of remaining over time. (JI)
Kendrick has always revered Tupac as one of his favorite artists and deepest influences. Had a “conversation” with him in Mortal Man in 2015 and on GNX decided to channel his musical presence into Reincarnated, a song in which Kendrick figuratively explores his past lives as a guitarist and singer on the Chit'lin circuit. The song is an interpolation of Made Niggaz by Tupac, a single produced by Johnny J for the soundtrack of Gang Relatedone of the last songs released by the rapper. The song is a tribute to Tupac from 1996, when he released the album Makavelia spiritual existentialist epic that pushed the boundaries of its theme.
Tupac's music from that period was defined by an anger and lust for vengeance evident in his voice. Her presence on the microphone had always been powerful, but in 1996, consumed by the betrayals of her former friends, she sounded vitriolic. Kendrick emulates that energy from the opening bars of Reincarnated. In the first two verses it eerily mirrors Pac's swing of low and high tones, double-time cadences and emphasis on the internal rhyme that allows him to stretch into the final rhyme. Many artists over the years have tried to channel this spirit, but Kendrick has decided to reincarnate it by simply being an amazing rapper. So much for those who say that «Tupac wasn't a lyricist». (AG)
Translation from Rolling Stone US.
