ALBUM: Kendrick Lamar GNX

American award-winning rapper Kendrick Lamar released a new studio project title “GNX” album.

The newly released project ‘GNX’ consists of 12 solid tracks.

Following an outright Machiavellian performance in a spat with one of the other most prominent voices in rap, there wasn’t much likely to surprise Kendrick Lamar fans, but the unannounced arrival of his GNX comes to us a few months after the Pop Out concert that doubled as something of a victory lap, and a little over two years after his audacious, revelatory Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers. On that album, Lamar sought to hold himself accountable for any number of personal misdeeds, wanting rap fans to understand that he is, above all else, flawed just like the rest of us.

He addresses his imperfections once again on GNX (“tv off”, “heart pt. 6”, “gloria”), but the missives here are also conspicuously aggressive. There is self-awareness, but it is often dwarfed by a pronounced virility, and in some instances outright menace (“wacced out murals”, “squabble up”, “peekaboo”). He doesn’t go it alone, either: There are guests (Kamasi Washington, SZA and producer Jack Antonoff, to name a few), but a great many of the verses here would lead one to believe that Lamar doesn’t actually need friends. What is paramount to allyship is respect, and from the way he’s rapping across GNX, God help those who’d dare withhold that from him.