Okay, then tell me the truth
Every individual is only a version of you
How can they forgive when there’s no forgiveness in your heart?

Kendrick Lamar Duckworth low-key stole Thanksgiving by surprise-releasing his highly-anticipated sixth studio album Grand National Experimental, GNX in short, halfway through the day on the Friday prior. Such an act of Congress evidently recalibrated the mainstream music discourse to its core, riding on the coattails of a momentously triumphant year-to-date for the 37-year-old Compton, CA native. Congruently to being unveiled without much fanfare, GNX is a relatively short and sticky musical affaire, considering the existing discography of the pgLang co-founder. Yet, its immediacy and appeal don’t come at the expense of its inherent messaging. One’s gotta dig though. It’s no spoon-feeding. What else did we expect, after all?

The opening salvo above, lifted from the LP’s pièce de résistance, “reincarnated“, which in turn tastefully and carefully flipped Tupac’s 1997 “Made N****z”, is a short sequence of bars that not only essentializes his creed, but goes as far as triaging one of the highest teaching from the Book of Kendrick (New Testament). In a late-stage capitalist climate that commodifies antagonism and seeks prize fighting, in a complete symbiosis with the rap game celebrating K.Dot as the undisputed heavyweight champion, he hits us with the softest, most passive-aggressive jab he can. After all, he’d already employed a whole double-album real estate to imperfectly sketch it all out raw for us, on Mr Morale & the Big Steppers.

By admitting that battling your competitors equals to battling yourself—not unlike Lacanian understandings of self-liberation perhaps best captured in mainstream through Fight Club—Kendrick exhumes a surprisingly inclusive message of universalism. Call it the law of our identity averaging those of the five people we spend most time with, chalk it up to affable Christianity; the cause here matters less than its effect. Here’s a tiny monition though: the former Top Dawg Entertainment recording artist can afford to seemingly contradict himself precisely because he’s the winner, not in spite of it. The implicit equity of a king admitting the peoples into the castle and telling them they’re all the same is outright superior to that of a moribund going out in spiritual style.

GNX is about agency and structure. It’s both an albatross and its excommunication. “wacced up murals” is its best tune, “squabble up” and “tv off” easily the funnest and stickiest, “heart pt. 6” perhaps the most gorgeous; yet if you only intend to press play on one of the cuts on this thing, make it “reincarnated”. It’s the study notes to Kung Fu Kenny’s whole entire career message. In our hyper-normalized, globalized, mediated landscape, most people can sure use shortcuts. The 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Music winner stands as a symptom, as a reaction to the erratic world, the one agent purported to help dismantle its structuralism. We all know panaceas are not known for being pretty. They’re far from unblemished.

On that note, what a distinctive and subtle way to silence detractors, hypocritically pointing at the inherent contradictions of parts of his gospel reconciling with Kodak Black and Dody6 features, as well as Dr. Dre mentorships. Desertion from pretentious yuppie outlets abound—he who is without sin cast the first stone, anyone? Jealousy is presumably a big one, too. With some internalized racism sprinkled on top, just for good measure. How is any pundit to keep a straight face lamenting GNX‘s self-esteem as ghastly, while Post Malone and Taylor Swift win their umpteenth meaningless award? As fellow contemporary heavyweight crown contenders resort to puffy and sterilized exculpatory devices, Kendrick Lamar lays it all out bare.

The very notion of reincarnation comes up several times within the latest batch of Lamar oeuvre. It features in the creative powering through the literal half-hour of promotion before GNX dropped on the 22nd November—mind you, on a snippet for a record that didn’t even make the final cut on the official tracklist. It’s of course the titular theme on the aforementioned standout, but it’s also mentioned prominently on the “squabble up” bop. The Los Angeles rapper spends the whole of track number six dishing out the inevitability of death and rebirth (one could canvas this as “soul pt. 6”, to reference its heart-centric companion on the album’s back-end). The transformative cycle of life as the only trustworthy upcycling process—devoid of specific allegiances to preconceived cloths, in spite of its biblical references (“You fell out of Heaven ’cause you was anxious / Didn’t like authority, only searched to be heinous / Isaiah fourteen was the only thing that was prevalent / My greatest music director was you“).

What the former Black Hippy ringleader is telling us is that he contains multitudes, which in turn include a part of all of us (who here remembers the ‘I Am. All of us.’ from “The Heart Part 5“?). The good thing is that we are a version of him, too. I could tell you where I’m going / I could tell you who you are. Although it’s clearly him who’s at the steering wheel of our daily journaling 1987 Buick GNX, there’s plenty of room for all of us to ride shotgun. On two Kendrick world conditions; one, that shall remain the sole reference to weapons throughout. Two, he’s condignly in charge.

We’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and we hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV