With no announcement, “GNX”, Kendrick Lamar’s sixth studio album, was released on Nov. 22. During the break of Lamar’s previous album, “Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers,” he released three singles. “Not Like Us,” “meet the grahams” and “euphoria” all came out within five days of each other.
This new album consists of 12 songs and is 44 minutes long. In “GNX,” Lamar features 10 artists: SZA, Dody6, Lefty Gunplay, Wallie the Sensei, Roddy Rich, Siete7x, AzChike, Hitta J3, YoungThreat and Peysoh.
Lamar opens the album with the song “wacced out murals.” The song starts with Mexican singer Deyra Barrera singing in Spanish and layered vocals. After the intro, it transitions into Lamar rapping. Something that stuck out to me about this song was the beats. The beat starts kind of quiet, like it’s building up on itself. The beat just continues to get stronger and stronger as the song goes on, then it ends the same way it started. I genuinely enjoyed the song, it was a good song to start the album off.
The two songs following “wacced out murals,” “squabble up” and “luther” featuring SZA, were my favorite songs off of the album. The song “squabble up” had a snippet released in the “Not Like Us” music video which already had me anticipating it more. The song starts with a buildup, then the beat drops. The song is fun and bouncy which is why I found myself enjoying it. Lamar’s lyricism as well as the well -beats had me going “mhm.” The next song, “luther” was more chill and had that usual SZA feeling to it. Being a big fan of the collaborations SZA and Lamar have done on other songs like “All The Stars,” “Doves In The Wind” and “Babylon,” I found myself loving “luther.” In certain parts of the song, both SZA and Lamar’s voices harmonize, making me feel like I was floating.
Throughout Lamar’s album, there are chill or upbeat as well as serious songs that contrast each other. The more serious songs are “man at the garden,” “hey now” featuring Dody6 and “reincarnated.” The song “man at the garden” has low drum beats which gives the song a hypnotic feel. All of these songs follow the same storytelling format, with Lamar speaking on his own experiences and a lesson at the end.
The more chill and upbeat songs are “heart pt. 6” and “tv off” featuring Lefty Gunplay. With “heart pt. 6,” the song samples “Use You Heart” by R&B trio, SWV. This sample immediately gives the songs a 90s R&B feel. But with “tv off,” the beat was playful yet still hard, giving the song a head-bopping feel.
Lamar closes the album with the song “gloria” with SZA. The song starts with vocals from Barrera again, paralleling the opening song, “wacced out murals.” The song has a more emotional feeling compared to the other songs, the Latin guitar adding to that feeling. The song was a perfect close to the album.
I genuinely enjoyed this album, finding it to be a perfect mixture of serious songs and lighthearted and more chiller songs. When it comes to music that I enjoy and listen to, I’m more of an R&B type of person who doesn’t listen to rap as much, but Lamar has always found a way to be an exception to me. If you enjoyed “GNX” by Kendrick Lamar, you would definitely enjoy his discography.
“GNX:” ★★★★★
