![Reaching out. Christopher Lesh, student at Central Catholic High School, serves ice cream during the event on March 2, 2025, at the Portland waterfront. Central Catholic was just one of the schools that sent student volunteers out to cook, prepare, dish, and serve food. Interact club’s co-president Rachel Gerber, junior, plated the food during the event. “I like how direct the contact is,” Gerber said. “You’re there [and] you’re just doing something good. It’s simple, it’s easy, you can feel good about it.”](https://wlhsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/interact-1-edited-1200x744.jpg)
![At the bottom of the third inning, the Lions are still scoreless. Rowe stands at home plate, preparing to bat, while Vandenbrink stands off to the side as the next batter up. Despite having the bases loaded, the team was unable to score any runs. “It’s just the beginning of the season. We’re just going to be playing out best by June, [and] that’s where champions are,” Rowe said.](https://wlhsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/IMG_3077-1200x900.jpg)
The phrase “Kendrick dropped” seems to have defined the year of 2024 for rap fans.
First it came from the diss tracks exchanged between him and Drake, a rap beef that has already cemented itself as one of the biggest of all time. Kendrick has released back-to-back tracks criticizing Drake for being an imposter in black American culture, placing himself as the winner in the eyes of some fans— “Not Like Us” was recently performed at Super Bowl LIX as well as the Grammys, with the crowd of each event singing along to the words.
On Sept. 11, 2024, Lamar released an untitled track cryptically posted on Instagram that featured Kendrick over angelic vocals rapping about the problems with the industry and an image of black Nike Air Force Ones.
But the phrase had never been so commonly used until Nov. 22, 2024, when Lamar released a full album with no warning apart from a minute long teaser that was released 30 minutes beforehand.
This album came as a shock to everyone, including Brian Zisook, a music industry veteran who’s worked with Lamar.
“The label found out this morning,” Zisook wrote in a tweet.
The album is kick-started with the track “wacced out murals.” The song is an attack on the industry and Lamar’s place within it. The title refers to a mural of Lamar in Compton, California, painted by Gustavo Zermeño. This mural was defaced on Sept. 8, with the eyes being crossed out and gang signs being painted over it.
“Of course we were pissed and wanted to fix it,” Zermeño said on Instagram. “[The song] doesn’t necessarily make it ok but it does feel good to have our hard work for the community immortalized in a song by one of the greatest to ever do it.”
Lamar’s opening track sets the tone for the album, as he fires off disses left and right. When Lamar was chosen to play at Super Bowl LIX over Lil Wayne, Wayne went to Instagram, making a video expressing his devastation from this decision. Lamar rapped in response, “Used to bump ‘Tha Carter III,’ I held my Rollie chain proud/ Irony, I think my hard work let Lil Wayne down,” essentially saying Wayne does not have the right to be angry because of the hard work Lamar has put in to get to this spot.
(Ethan Chenevert)
Wayne initially responded with a confused and angry tweet, but has recently revealed in an interview that he and Lamar have talked, and that “he gotta kill it” at the Superbowl.
Throughout the song, Lamar continued to take other shots at people like rappers Snoop Dogg and J. Cole, as well as comedian Andrew Schultz, kicking off an album unlike any other we’d seen from Lamar.
What this album truly ended up being about was West Coast hip-hop as a whole, and giving a spotlight to other west coast artists who he believed deserved more recognition. Lamar featured smaller, amazing West Coast artists on his songs, such as Dody6 on “hey now” and Lefty Gunplay on “tv off.”
Not only did he bring up smaller artists into the spotlight with him, he also gave recognition to one of his biggest inspirations and one of the most influential west coast rappers of all time, Tupac Shakur.
On perhaps the best track on the album, “reincarnated,” Lamar samples Tupac’s song “Made N****z,” showing love to the west coast and the inspiration that has got him to where he is today. He also pays homage to him in “gloria” by personifying his pen in the same way Tupac did about his gun in the track “Me and My Girlfriend.”
In “reincarnated,” Lamar tells the story of three musical artists: a guitarist from michigan in 1947, a vocalist in a Chitlin’ Circuit, and himself, all told from the perspective as if they are himself. It tells the story of himself being reincarnated through past lives, representing how black artists can build off each other’s greatness and learn from their mistakes such as greed and substance abuse.
While this album has some amazing highs, it starts to lose its traction as an album toward the end. Tracks eight through 12 don’t feel like they go together as well as tracks one through seven did. These tracks feel less cohesive and planned out, and sound more like four singles.
The back half does have some standouts though. “heart pt. 6” is an amazing song where Lamar talks about his rap upbringing and his days in the rap group Black Hippy alongside SchoolboyQ, Jay Rock, and Ab-Soul, and how he blames himself for the ending of the group.
“dodger blue” is an extremely underrated track on the back half, containing great melodic rapping from Kendrick as well as its primary feature Roddy Ricch, the song is a tribute to Los Angeles, referencing a variety of its neighborhoods and being named after Los Angeles’ baseball team, the Dodgers.
Lamar is able to explore a lot of this melodic rapping throughout this album, expertly performing on the song “luther” alongside SZA, creating the most popular song on the album.
Still, songs like “peekaboo” and “gnx” are some songs that aren’t just weak compared to the album, but weak compared to most of Lamar’s catalog. Even going back to older mixtapes, these songs are what really drag the back half down.
The GNX tour has also been announced, starting in April 2025. He will be touring alongside SZA, who is featured twice on the album and they have featured for each other before and performed together at Super Bowl LIX this past weekend.
All in all, GNX was a great experience that showed love to the West Coast and tied together where Lamar has been previously and where he intends to go next. It is a must listen for any fan of hip-hop.
Rating: 8/10
Kendrick Lamar: The history before 'GNX' Quiz
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