Legendary rapper Kendrick Lamar has returned with a new album that seemed to drop out of nowhere. Lamar gave us a small taste of this album in his “Not Like Us” music video, but no one thought he would release it when he did. Lamar is coming off his huge success in the back-and-forth that he and fellow rapper Drake had earlier this year. This shot Lamar further into fame (although he was already there) and hyped up his music heavily.
“GNX” is an interesting album from start to finish. The album ranges from hard rap songs with relentless bars from Lamar and others that are retrospective looks at the lives of other musicians and Lamar’s own life. This album boasts minimal features from big names, the one standout being singer SZA.
SZA features on two songs, one of which is one of my favorites on the album. “Luther” is a chill song that samples “If This World Was Mine” by Luther Vandross, hence the song’s name. This song is beautiful. I’ve hated SZA in the past, but she works so well on this song. Overall Lamar and SZA are a match made in heaven, and the song perfectly shows this.
Another one of my favorite songs on the album is “Reincarnated”. This song is an insane mix of retrospective thoughts about Lamar’s coming up along with others. In this song, Lamar uses the idea of looking at his metaphorical past lives. Although Lamar never said out loud who he is talking about, many music writers have theorized that he was talking about himself, guitarist John Lee Hooker and jazz singer Billie Holiday. At the end of this song, Lamar has a conversation with God and goes over his life. God tells Lamar to kill his pride and live through God’s guidance. Lamar states that he has done many good things in his life and has done well. Overall, this song is a beautiful story of how fame can negatively change people’s lives.
This album as a whole is not one of Lamar’s best works. Compared to other albums he has made like “To Pimp a Butterfly” and “Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers”, GNX falls short of them. Compared to other rappers though, it is quite good. On the first listen of this album, nothing caught my attention. I was kind of listening passively and didn’t understand what Lamar was saying. After a couple of listens through and reading the lyrics, I now understand what Lamar was getting at with his words. This makes the experience of the album a whole lot better. Many good moments on this album show Lamar’s great ability to share stories through music. Overall this album is 8/10
