Kendrick Lamar releases surprise album

New Kendrick just dropped.
Rapper Kendrick Lamar released his latest project, a 12-track album titled “GNX” on Friday. It’s his first full-length studio album since 2022, and it came as a complete surprise. Just minutes before the full release Lamar posted a teaser video for the album’s title track.
Lamar, whose tongue-twistingly quick rhymes propelled him to fame in the 2010s, has become increasingly reclusive.
That “GNX” came with little publicity is not much of a surprise then. The description for the album on Apple Music reads simply, “He asked us to ‘watch the party die,’ but only so he could resurrect it.”
Superstar producer Jack Antonoff, known for working with pop royalty like Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter, and frequent collaborator Mustard also lent his name to the album. Guest features include SZA, Dody6 and Sam Dew, and many of the tracks lean into sampling, creating a more textured experience by blending hard rap with operatic vocals and retro R&B sounds.
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The album’s artwork features a black-and-white image of the rapper leaning against the back of a car — a GNX presumably.
On the first track “Wacced Out Murals,” Lamar raps, “Riding in my GNX with Anita Baker in the tank.” A GNX is a Buick high-performance coup.
Listen to the full album here.
The Pulitzer-prize-winning artist found chart-topping success recently with “Not Like Us,” a diss track in a since-sizzled beef between the Compton, California-based rapper and Drake.
The Drake-Kendrick spat kicked off officially in April when Drake released two diss tracks targeting Lamar specifically: “Push Ups” and “Taylor Made Freestyle.” Lamar fired back with “Euphoria,” and “6:16 in LA,” sparking a domino-like beef in which the two rappers exchanged insult-laden tracks laced with allegations that ranged from petty to criminal.
The high-octane (and available for streaming) exchange certainly raised the beef’s profile, but the two rappers had been quietly feuding for years.
Lamar is also set to headline this year’s Super Bowl Halftime show in New Orleans.
“Not Like Us” is notably absent, signaling it was truly a standalone single for beefing purposes rather than part of a larger work.
“Heart pt. 6,” track 10, may be yet another chess move in the Drake-Kendrick battle. Lamar has a song series entitled “The Heart” with a 2022 installment called “The Heart Part 5.” In the thick of their 2024 spat, Drake released a diss track titled “The Heart Part 6,” which got such a negative fan reaction that he took down the Instagram post promoting it.
The latest may be Lamar throwing shade back, or just continuing “The Heart” series as planned.
Contributing: Taijuan Moorman
This story has been updated to include additional information and to meet our standards.