Kendrick the Hypocrite, Trippin’ and Lovin’ It
On ‘GNX,’ Kendrick is a mortal, a savior, an icon, and a firestarter all rolled into one.
Hypocrisy has long been one of Kendrick Lamar’s favorite vices. When he called himself “the biggest hypocrite of 2015” on To Pimp a Butterfly’s “The Blacker the Berry,” the Compton native was attempting to address several racially coded paradoxes: How could he, a Black man and rap superstar struggling with survivor’s remorse, dare take pride in his heritage when “gang-banging made me kill a nigga Blacker than me?” The uncomfortable, contradictory mess of it all was the point, albeit one served with a heaping spoonful of respectability politics. This dichotomy has been at the core of his work since at least 2012’s Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City—it’s right there in that album’s title. But over the last decade, it’s manifested in several forms, from the pious doomsaying of Damn. to the fidgety melodrama of Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers to this year’s piping-hot rap world war with Drake. Kendrick may have walked away triumphant, but he’s not really one for mindless victory laps. He’s still plenty conflicted. And now, his hypocrisies animate his entire being.
Much of his sixth studio album, GNX, delves into this fixation by addressing one overarching question: What do you do with yourself after publicly eviscerating the biggest rapper on the planet? The album foregrounds the eternal wrestling match between the savior, the icon, the man, and the firestarter grappling in Kendrick’s head. It’s too thematically focused to be a mixtape but too loose to stand next to the proudly conceptual might of his past five albums. At its best, GNX shows off his range, digs through his thoughts, and lets him pop shit in the bluntest way imaginable (thankfully, the hifalutin theatrics and therapy-speak of Mr. Morale are gone). But at its worst, the album finds Kendrick all but drowning in his hypocrisies—it’s enough to make you wish he would rap about something, anything, else.
Outside of his five diss tracks from earlier this year, Kendrick has rarely been as ferocious as he is on GNX’s nastiest songs. He’s walked back a good amount of Mr. Morale’s healing journey and isn’t afraid of friendly fire this time. “Call me crazy, everybody questionable,” he bellows on deck-clearing opener “Wacced Out Murals”—seconds after jabbing at Lil Wayne over his comments about Kendrick playing next year’s Super Bowl in Wayne’s hometown of New Orleans, and seconds before checking Snoop Dogg over sharing Drake’s A.I.-generated “Taylor Made” freestyle on Instagram. If Kendrick will go after such legends for perceived slights, what chance does everyone else have? On this track and several others, his voice and delivery feel thicker, and not just because of his noticeably more prominent Cali accent. Kendrick’s raps have always been steered by purpose and self-awareness, but here, that energy’s unleashed in a more threatening way. He’s fed up with a lot—culture vultures, rappers faking the funk (and the fans and peers who let them get away with it)—and ready to deliver body blows.
That viciousness carries many of the project’s most entertaining cuts. “Squabble Up,” which began life as a snippet that played at the top of the video for “Not Like Us,” mostly lives up to the hype, giving a sample of Debbie Deb’s freestyle classic “When I Hear Music” a menacing synth twist that finds fun in diasporic unity and direct street-rap-style puns. “TV Off,” the album’s most explosive salvo, presents Kendrick with his chest fully out, as he takes on all comers—he’s even willing to cut off his grandmother over blaring 808s and wall-shattering horns. From the yelps and chortles in between bars to the meme-able roar of “Mustaaaaaaaard!” that follows its beat switch, “TV Off” gives us Kendrick at his most unhinged, with his instinct and flow pushing him through the madness.
In true Kendrick fashion, he’s most interesting when sprinkling in bits of biography and introspection with the spoonfuls of street rap sugar. This balance is achieved perfectly on tracks like the brooding “Hey Now,” where he contemplates his simultaneous urges to make money, find inner peace, and put squares on people’s backs like Jack Dorsey. This conflict with self pops more urgently against producers Mustard and Sounwave’s trilling synths—it’s one of a few places where Kendrick’s career-long affinity for Trojan horse-ing thoughtful content into accessible packages is still there in earnest.
The more straight-laced offerings, however, don’t always connect. A track like “Reincarnated” sounds great on paper—a concept song where Kendrick implies he lived past lives as blues guitarist John Lee Hooker and jazz legend Billie Holiday, before becoming a fallen angel dueling with God, all over a sample of Tupac’s “Made Niggaz.” But the end result feels overwrought and out-of-place. Same goes for closing track “Gloria,” which recycles the well-worn idea of a love song dedicated to the act of writing itself into a chintzy “I Used to Love H.E.R.” retread. When stacked next to the breezier, new-school L.A. songs, these more serious cuts play like Sharif from Menace II Society spoiling everyone’s fun.
Kendrick has always been an L.A. artist to the bone, but previous projects, at least production-wise, have either emulated or distorted classic California rap tropes rather than fully embracing new ones. Good Kid and TPAB spent most of their time rearranging Dre-era G-funk into grander and jazzier shapes, while Damn. and Mr. Morale mixed pop-rap sensibilities with moody boom-bap and baroque chamber music. The freshness, then, leaned heavily on Kendrick’s cadences and approach, zig-zagging between different poles of hip-hop with the precision of a slot car. Much has been made of pop producer Jack Antonoff having credits on all 12 of GNX’s tracks, but the trademark sound he brings to artists like Taylor Swift and Lorde is largely absent. Longtime Kendrick (and Antonoff) collaborator Sounwave is credited on every song too, and seeing the duo push each other to lusher and more raucous territory is a thrill. “Dodger Blue,” for example, is classic hyphy mixed with chillwave and buffed to a mirror sheen, sparkling with just a touch of grime and finesse from co-producer Terrace Martin.
Comparatively, chunks of GNX operate like a scene record, diving deep into the modern California street-rap landscape with cameos from hot local talent, and grandiose takes on the area’s throbbing beats. “Hey Now” and “Peekaboo,” in particular, borrow cadence, tone, and sonic aesthetics from L.A. underground hero Drakeo the Ruler. Kendrick does a great impression of the late rapper, and you can tell he’s been relishing the chance to test these flows out, but it doesn’t feel like an evolution. It’s delicately walking the line between homage and pantomime, especially with no popping contemporary L.A. producers behind the boards. His current-scene bona fides are helped only by the presence of slinky local up-and-comers like AZChike, Dody6, and Peysoh, who all sound extremely grateful for the opportunity.
But this implicitly conciliatory gesture toward the streets of Cali also plays into the hypocrisy Kendrick continues to tangle with after all these years. Is there a way for an artist of his stature to authentically pay tribute to his home without seeming vampiric? These kinds of questions have plagued him since the days of Good Kid’s “Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst,” but back then he wasn’t the rap-god-killing, chart-topping mogul he is today. After the Drake knockout, which came on the heels of his most divisive album to date, Kendrick has little left to prove, which is scary in its own right. The only way to move on is through, and with GNX, Kendrick is more than willing to play heel to his own legacy.
