When 2024 started, it was in uproar. No one could have possibly predicted the trajectory the year would take culturally and in music. When Katt Williams said, “all lies will be exposed” during the interview he did on Club Shay Shay that broke the internet a few days into the year (sending airwaves ablaze with so many quotable moments and, in faithful internet culture, many memes and gifs)—anyway, when Katt Williams said that, no one could have possibly predicted that someone else was going to take a jab at Drake’s armour, and that someone would be none other than West Coast rapper Kendrick Lamar. This has been the biggest thing to truly happen in hip hop in a long time, and watching Kendrick snap and take a victory lap whilst Drake acts like a sore loser has been nothing short of amazing to witness.
From the perspective of a fan, the progression of the rap beef with the back-and-forth of songs released by Kendrick Lamar is the most active I’ve seen Kendrick be in his career, and this may possibly be not only the biggest rap beef of his career but one of the biggest rap beefs in hip hop history. The catalogue and body of work released during the duration of this beef alone could suffice to host a concert, and it would undoubtedly be one of the best concerts in hip hop. This is just the cake; the icing on top is that, after the beef climaxed and came to an end with Kendrick as the emerging victor and Drake the non-victor, Kendrick went on and dropped a surprise album titled GNX. In many ways, it serves as an illustration for Drake on how to make a genuine hip hop record/project whilst singlehandedly reviving the true spirit of hip hop culture. It’s important to note that this project only came after Kendrick was announced as the Super Bowl 2025 halftime act.
The reason all of this is worth mentioning is because it’s imperative to digest this project with a full picture of the context behind it. Without the context, one can easily miss why and how this record has had such a big moment and the impact it has had—not only on listeners but on other artists and music makers as well. It’s kind of like seeing the tip of an iceberg and thinking that’s all there is to it.
In more ways than one, GNX is a lot like an iceberg: deeply rooted, colossal, and strong-willed, yet very austere and modest in its presentation and perception. It’s a project that, despite how you perceive it due to its presentation or the makings of it, you simply cannot deny has shaken the culture. Just because the culprit doesn’t match your imagination or expectation doesn’t make the culprit any less guilty. In the same vein, just because the helmsman either missed or underestimated the tip of the iceberg whilst steering the great Titanic in April 1912 doesn’t take away the fact that this same iceberg tip derailed the course of said great ship and sank it, along with hundreds of others.
GNX is Kendrick’s shortest album, following behind his untitled compilation project from 2016, but despite the fleetingness of the record due to its minimal size, it’s a sharp shooter, and it’s a better project than most artists can make nowadays. It’s fresh, inventive, and more or less experimental for Kendrick, signalling a tremendous amount of growth from 2022’s Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers. My point is, impact is not solely determined by outward appearances and factors such as size, but rather the force behind the impact is internal and comes from ingredients within. Some people have it, some don’t. David had it, and yet he was almost microscopic standing next to Goliath. In the same way, Goliath didn’t have it—perhaps he was too distracted by his size in the mirror to factor in or even merely entertain the thought that he may have been ten times bigger than his opponent, but his spirit was just as small as David’s, if not smaller.
One thing to appreciate about Kendrick as an artist is his ability to give you a project you were not expecting. Ain’t no way has anybody ever said, “Hey, I kind of saw that Kendrick concept coming,” especially in respect to his musical endeavours. And that’s really exciting and refreshing to see because it inadvertently takes him off a certain pedestal and brings him down to a more human level, which is unpredictable and forever changing and moulding into different states, resultantly inspiring different life which art then imitates. This will forever be more stimulating as opposed to a manufactured and carefully calculated and strategised persona that merely exists as an artist simply to scoop plaques, act childish with incredulous and intolerable personalities, make a shitload of money just to splurge on girls and illegal stimulants, and revel in fame.
Hip hop is a culture, and like every culture, it’s governed by certain traditions that keep it wholesome by acting as gatekeepers to ensure longevity and sustainability. When it started some fifty years ago, no one could have anticipated or predicted how much coverage it would develop and how it would carve its space in mainstream media and music. It’s become bigger than it set out to be, which is great—but with that comes a lot of dilution of the culture. In order for hip hop to achieve the amount of success it has, it’s partly due to the universality that engulfs it in the sense that it couldn’t be gatekept and enclosed by a kraal in New York. It was such a big movement that it inspired different metropolitans, cities, and coasts into developing various original sounds and styles whilst painting their perspective on drum breaks. Essentially, hip hop is a culture that was born out of the need for a haven at a time when the environment and communities were overpopulated with struggle and strife post-Reagan era.
Understandably so, due to such struggles, when hip hop was coming up, because people did not have instruments, they used turntables whereby the DJ would scratch back and forth between the decks at a point that was called the get-down point. To break it down, DJs would find a small section or part of a record that they liked and make the most of it—another illustration of size or duration not limiting impact. This was sampling at its earliest point. This is how it was born and why it is such a big component of the culture. Thus, hip hop music was born out of DJs making do by sampling records they loved and utilising that small beat to create a whole new sound, accompanied by an MC spitting rhymes over the sound. This was essentially what would get the crowd riled up.
On GNX, Kendrick Lamar makes a headstrong attempt at restoring the true spirit of hip hop which, as the culture and genre have grown, many have felt has been eroded over time, affected by digitalisation and changes in ways that music is consumed. Essentially, when you follow the beef closely, one can easily argue that a big part of it all was about Kendrick restoring the spirit of hip hop. This can be tracked from the diss tracks—which qualify to be a small body of work (like an EP)—to the pop-up concert he did in his hometown, bringing rival gangs together on one stage, and finally to him consequently signing off the year of 2024 by reigning as the king and messiah of hip hop via assassination of colonial embodiments. Not forgetting how, on a random Friday in November, he dropped a heavily inspired full-length project with no promo or rollout, starting 2025 off strong with the growing anticipation of his upcoming Super Bowl performance. This is how one says GOAT without explicitly saying it.
Interestingly enough, people tell on themselves. A big part of the picture that Kendrick drew, especially of Drake, is proving to be pretty consistent with reality. Kendrick accused Drake of being a coloniser of the culture, and what does Drake do? Drake goes and does the worst thing imaginable—he uses AI to sound like West Coast hip hop legend Tupac. To be honest, it’s nearly impossible to fathom what could have truly inspired such a miscalculated, poor move. What made that record blatantly distasteful was how much the song was void of the spirit of Tupac. It sounded like who Tupac could have been if he grew up Canadian and in a mansion in a nice and cosy middle-class neighbourhood. That undoubtedly made Tupac turn in his grave. Personally, I found it to be so disrespectful, and I’m not even from the West Coast! From the outside looking in, it looks like Drake has someone in his camp knowingly feeding him terrible advice. Because you don’t really have to be Einstein to know certain moves are just catapulting yourself a whole load of Ls. Perhaps he’s too preoccupied with yachts, pills, and Hammer pants to use his two senses. Again, using AI to channel Tupac was a terrible move. Look what you made Kendrick do.
On GNX, Kendrick presents Reincarnated, an illustration to the world, the doubters, and most importantly Drake and fellow colonisers, of how to correctly channel greatness—not in imitation or mockery, but as the true picture of homage in hip hop culture. Reincarnated is a top-tier, highly inspired song operating at the highest level as it expertly weaves in Kendrick’s lyrics and embellishes them with a sample of Tupac’s Made Niggaz, blatantly and confidently serving as a beautiful contrast and correction to Drake’s use of AI-generated Tupac vocals in a rap battle against a fellow West Coast rapper who grew up on Tupac. I’m sorry, it’s just amazing to me. Reincarnated reminds me a lot of To Pimp a Butterfly’s How Much a Dollar Cost and Mortal Man, as all these aforementioned songs show Kendrick operating on an almost higher realm and spirit, having these celestial awakenings and conversations that are very pre-emptive and mentally provoking. On these songs, we’re confronted by a regular Kendrick going through regular shit, but painting a different perspective of things that’s gravitating in as much as it’s authentic. He’s not just talking about regular rap shit like women, drugs, alcohol, and riches, but he’s touching on real topics and real-life shit. Most importantly, he’s able to aptly parallel the goings-on in his personal life, the turmoil and feelings he has from life experiences, translate them, and put them on record to almost make you feel like you were there. And he does it so wonderfully and seamlessly.
In the words of Game:
“Hate it or love it, the underdog’s on top. And I’m gon’ shine,
I’m rap’s MVP and I ain’t going nowhere so you can get to know me.”
Dear Drake fans, it’s time to put away your Dracos and get to know the king, because he’s not going anywhere. See y’all at the Super Bowl.