Premature Evaluation: Kendrick Lamar GNX

Rap music is miraculous. You could be staring down what promises to be a lazy Friday afternoon, the week before a holiday, and then you could glance at your computer and realize that the world has changed. The album that you've been waiting on, the one that you didn't want to presume to expect, could suddenly fall out of the sky -- the whole thing just arriving on your phone all at once. Shit could get crazy, scary, spooky, hilarious. It's that rarest of beasts: the good kind of emergency.

The samples and allusions have been chosen with real intention. They locate the album within tradition and lived experience. GNX is named after the '87 Buick Grand National that Kendrick coveted as a kid, and now he wants us to know that he's riding around and bumping Anita Baker from his tape deck. Certain voices float through. SZA sings a duet with the ghost of Luther Vandross. SWV soundtrack Kendrick's bittersweet ode to his old TDE running buddies. Sam Dew croons that he's got his 50 on him, so don't die tryin' in this bitch. When Kendrick sings about seeing spaceships on Rosecrans, he feels like Fabo. When he turns relationship raps into elaborate personification writing exercises, he feels like Common Sense.

Other rappers appear on GNX, but none of them are obvious names. Instead, they're LA underground figures: AzChike, Dody 6, YoungThreat, Hitta J3, Peysoh, Wallie The Sensei. Roddy Ricch is in here, but only as a backup singer. I thought that was YG at the end of "tv off," but no, it's someone named Lefty Gunplay. Those are the voices inspiring Kendrick right now, and he meets them on their wordy, guttural, instinctive level. He sounds like he's home.

Every Kendrick Lamar album combines anthemic bangers with thoughtful, expansive self-interrogations. I always prefer the bangers, but there are no indulgent momentum-killers among inward-looking songs on GNX. The sad and fond memories on "heart pt. 6" are genuinely gripping, and the Sixth Sense-level twist at the end of "gloria" genuinely shocked me. The singsong lope of "dodger blue" briefly allows Kendrick to sound content with the world, while "luther" glimmers like puddles in the sun. Even at its slowest and most ornate, this music is always funky. It always moves.

"man at the garden" isn't the best song on GNX, but it might be the most telling. The music is a lush, moody synthscape that recalls the moments of Phil Collins' "In The Air Tonight" before the drums come crashing in. Over that evocative slow boil, Kendrick keeps coming back to one four-word phrase: "I deserve it all." He's right. Kendrick Lamar cemented his place in rap's eternal lineage long ago, and the events of the past year have reminded the world of what he can do when he's in his zone. Few people would've denied him his flowers. But we can only feel intense gratitude for Kendrick's detractors today. They motivated him to make this.

Two songs into GNX, I knew I was hearing a classic album. Six songs in, I knew I was hearing a historic moment. As I write this, GNX has existed for four and a half hours, and I'm ready to tell you that it's the best album of 2024 and the greatest work of Kendrick Lamar's career. Maybe that initial euphoria will fade. Maybe I'll eventually put everything in sober perspective and concede that it's merely a great album. I hope not. Miracles should always feel like miracles. Fuck being rational.

GNX is out now on pgLang/Interscope.