Kendrick Lamar surprise releases new album ‘GNX’
Kendrick Lamar has surprised fans with the release of his new album titled GNX. The Compton rapper shared the project on November 22nd without any warning, simply posting a link to the project on X and the cover art to his Instagram page.
Released through pgLang and Interscope Records, the project is made up of 12 tracks stylised in lowercase.
Some of the song titles include ‘Wacced Out Murals’, ‘Reincarnated’ and ‘Dodger Blue’, as well as the sixth entry of his ‘The Heart’ series’. A song called ‘Squabble Up’, which was previewed at the beginning of his ‘Not Like Us’ video, also makes it onto the tracklist.
Producers across the album include Sounwave, DJ Dahi, Mustard, Jack Antonoff, Terrace Martin and Kamasi Washington, with SZA featured on the song ‘luther’.
The title, GNX, references the Buick Grand National Experimental car, which is the vehicle Kendrick Lamar came home from the hospital in when he was born; he previously said his father was playing Big Daddy Kane through the speakers at the time. K.Dot shared a lengthy message alongside photos of the Buick Regal on Instagram in May.
“Aye life get real tricky,” he wrote in the cryptic post. “no matter where you at with it. i never pick and choose what stories to relate to. all of them is relative. like my momma say tho. different strokes for different folks. a good ol saying can snap you back into reality sometimes.”
He continued, “but in the moment of confusion, the best thing you can do is find a gnx. make you realize the only thing that matters in life is that original paper work. that TL2 code. 1 of 547. yea i finally changed. its over with. dhz. my big cousin pat dogg smiling down. anybody wanna line it up. i’ll pull heem off the floor and flip yo shit.”
GNX serves as the follow-up to Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers album, which dropped in May 2022. His fifth studio album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart with 295,000 units in its first week.