By: Tyler Barnes
2024 was undoubtedly the year of Kendrick Lamar. I am inclined to believe Apple Music knew something, because they announced it before Kendrick’s latest record, GNX dropped. The album is only forty-four minutes in length, but it is the west-coast record that fans have been waiting for. While there was no Taylor Swift feature as rumored by users on social media, the album features two appearances from SZA, and many names unfamiliar to those in the mainstream. From the likes of Dody6, Lefty Gunplay, AzChike and more, there are plenty of west-coast names showing up on this project. The record has since earned the number one spot on the Billboard 200 albums chart, selling over 319,000 copies in its first week and has multiple charting singles on the Hot 100. GNX is Kendrick’s second-highest-selling album in terms of first-week sales yet, still not coming close to DAMN.’s first-week sales of 610,000. All of this album’s success undoubtedly comes from the biggest cultural event of the year, Kendrick’s rap beef with Drake. The beef gave us ‘Not Like Us,’ Kendrick’s highest-performing single ever, breaking hip-hop streaming records, and the fan-favorite ‘euphoria.’ A majority of people who witnessed this rap beef believe that Kendrick Lamar destroyed Drake, leading to a great amount of scrutiny towards the Canadian rapper that continues to this day as he is pursuing legal action against his own label, UMG. People have their thoughts and opinions about how Drake navigated the beef, but something most people aren’t considering is how Drake’s actions have massively impacted the creation of GNX. The record’s sound, the assortment of guests, and the record’s industry performance all have ties to Drake and his influence.
Let’s start with the record’s sound palette, which was kickstarted by the runaway success of ‘Not Like Us.’ The final song from Kendrick in his beef was an attempt at a ‘Back To Back’ moment, using Drake’s tactics against him. ‘Back To Back’ was released during Drake’s beef with Meek Mill, and despite the track’s intent, it became a popular hit and the kind of song Drake fans would be bumping on repeat for its memorable hook, bouncy sound and Drake’s confident attitude and flow. Kendrick was deliberately trying to recreate the success and influence that ‘Back To Back’ had during Drake’s beef with Meek Mill, but it exceeded anyone’s expectations. Becoming another one of his most popular songs and the most popular song of 2024, Kendrick Lamar cooked Drake alive on this track, winning over the general public with an incredibly catchy hook and beat while delivering many memorable cadences and bars that are going to be quoted for decades to come. From this song’s success, GNX’s sound as a West Coast hip-hop record was a clear path forward, allowing Kendrick to continue paying tribute to the area he belongs to and giving the audience more songs that they are guaranteed to love. Sure, saying that Drake’s beef with Kendrick inspired the creation of ‘Not Like Us’ is one thing, but there’s more to look at with the cuts on GNX. The thing with this album’s highlight tracks such as ‘squabble up’ and ‘tv off,’ is the formula used on this record. Both of these songs in particular, while being massively popular, have very similar composition and structure to ‘Not Like Us,’ and playing them side-by-side makes that apparent. While it isn’t a bad thing that the palette of songs on GNX takes direct inspiration from the banger that started it all, it is still worth noting where the most popular songs’ formula and influence come from.
The next point of interest is the guests on GNX. To people who listen to mainstream music, the names on Kendrick’s project are unfamiliar. People will definitely recognize SZA and maybe even Roddy Rich, but if you asked someone who Dody6 was, not a lot of people would have an answer for you. That is, until this record dropped. Kendrick’s name and star-power have done a lot to help bring eyes to the guest features on the record, and he brought a whole assortment of underground west-coast rappers for people to discover. What’s interesting about this move is how Drake and people from his camp had critiqued Kendrick in the past about not putting on West Coast artists on his projects. For example, his most recent records feature artists like Rhianna, U2, Kodak Black, Summer Walker, Sampha, and Ghostface Killah. The only obscure artist brought up in this discussion would be Baby Keem, but that’s because Baby Keem is Kendrick Lamar’s cousin, so it makes sense why Kendrick collaborated and helped write songs with him. This was a pretty interesting point of contention amongst those in hip-hop since it was a good point and it seemed like as Kendrick continued to get bigger, he mainly worked with popular artists and did guest features with huge names like Taylor Swift and Maroon 5. Drake has done plenty of things similar to Kendrick Lamar, and arguably even worse with what people call the “Drake Care Package,” where he shows up for an artist only to vanish not long after assisting them on a feature, on OVO, or boosting them on social media. This claim had the intent of discrediting Kendrick Lamar as an icon for the West Coast, so in a way of refuting the opposition, this new album consists mainly of features from underground artists to put them on and hopefully get them mainstream attention. From how well this album is doing though, it seems that Kendrick has more than succeeded in this, getting multiple of these artists their first appearance on the Billboard charts ever.
The last thing worth mentioning is Drake himself and how big of a target he was for Kendrick Lamar to take on. Drake is an artist who has broken many records inside and outside of hip-hop and is the most popular artist alongside Taylor Swift, leaving the two of them to battle the top spot last year. Drake would ultimately hand the throne over to Taylor Swift, but his influence and popularity as an artist were still massive. So when the time came for the rap beef between himself and the beloved Kendrick Lamar, there was a lot riding on the outcome. It was a test of skill, creativity, and who had the better strategy amongst two of rapper’s biggest names period. Anyone stepping up to the plate to confront Drake was a challenge in itself, but he was not invincible, made apparent by Pusha T back in 2018. Even after the beef, Drake was right back on top, making him feel invincible, even with a few cracks in his foundation. Cracks would continue to form over the years, and Kendrick Lamar, like a samurai with his pen, would slice right through Drake in this beef, dealing heavy damage to his reputation and public image for the time being. As a result of this outcome, Kendrick Lamar became even bigger than before, making whatever he would release after this beef monumental. In the same way To Pimp A Butterfly increased everyone’s expectations of Kendrick when DAMN. came out, the beef he won caused expectations to soar as well when it came to what he had coming next.
By the end of this GNX’s relevance in the mainstream, it will have fulfilled its purpose. The record’s main goal was to generate more publicity and attention for Kendrick following his beef with hip-hop’s biggest artist. The way Kendrick moved about the beef is always up for discussion and even scrutiny, and the same goes for Drake, but what is apparent is how this beef shaped the rollout and creation of Kendrick’s sixth studio album, GNX. Without the beef, who knows what this next record would have been like? At the time of writing this, the creative intent and production cycle of GNX is still shrouded in mystery, so all we know for sure is that this new era of Kendrick Lamar is going to dominate the mainstream as much as DAMN. did.
Do you agree? Disagree? Have thoughts of your own? Comment down below and continue the discussion!