With no rollout, no snippets (besides one an hour before the release, which wasn’t even on the album), no leaked tracks, no warning, last Friday, Kendrick Lamar released his sixth studio album, GNX, and I haven’t been able to stop listening to and thinking about it since. 

Coming of his series of diss tracks against Drake earlier this year, his single “Watch the Party Die”, and the response to his Super Bowl performance announcement, this album is filled with so much animosity towards his contemporaries, the music industry, and listeners who don’t respect his art. The album opens with the track “wacced out mural,” a reference to the mural that was created of Kendrick this summer, which was vandalized by a Drake supporter with the acronym “OVO,” the name of Drake’s record label. “wacced out mural” is one of the most lyrically dense tracks on the album, accompanied by an eerie beat that requires you to really sit down and think about what he’s about to say. Kendrick came into the production of this album with a vengeance to prove everyone who has spoken ill of him wrong. 

Kendrick pushes aside any argument that he isn’t able to make enjoyable music and only sticks to heady, introspective lyrics incredibly well on this album. Tracks like “squabble up,” “peekaboo,” and “tv off” offer some of the most catchy, memorable flows that I’ve listened to this year. It also highlights incredible melodic harmonies on “luther” and “gloria” with R&B artist SZA. With production from Jack Antonoff and DJ Mustard, this album provides a high level of energy that everyone will enjoy, solidifying itself as one of the “on-repeat” albums for the rest of 2024 and going into 2025. 

This album serves as a showcase of West Coast rap as Kendrick is accompanied by an ensemble of L.A. artists, comprising almost all of the features on the album. Another one of the biggest criticisms of Kendrick this summer was that he had left his city behind when he became famous, moving away from artists who shared the same community he did in favor of mainstream artists. These features serve to disprove this narrative by highlighting phenomenal up-and-coming artists from L.A., showing the world all of the talent coming from the West Coast, and the style of music that shaped Kendrick into the artist he is today. Wallie the Sensei and Siete7x’s verses on “dodger blue” were some of my favorites off the entire album from artists I had personally never listened to before. Hitta J3, YoungThreat, and Peysoh on “gnx” were also names I had never heard before, requiring me to go and check out their own work before continuing onto the rest of the album, something that I rarely need to do when listening to new music. The purpose that Kendrick put on promoting lesser-known artists on this album gives it a very unique vibe, acting as an illustration for everything that the West Coast rap scene has to offer.

GNX is definitely Kendrick’s most accessible album to the average listener. Though he doesn’t completely step away from diving into the heavy lyricism that fans are used to from his previous work, the catchy, fun feeling that this album has doesn’t give me the feeling that I need to give him my undivided attention in order to give it the respect it deserves—which is something that I personally feel like is required for his other albums like To Pimp a Butterfly or Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers. 

This album is a clap-back to everyone who has been skeptical of Kendrick’s reign as the greatest rapper of this generation, and If you asked me to describe this album in one word, I’d say: MUSTARRRDDDDD