AILSA CHANG, HOST:
After keeping the rap world on its heels all year long, trading diss tracks with Drake, Kendrick Lamar is closing out 2024 with that same energy. Today, he dropped a surprise album called "GNX." And here with us to talk about it is NPR Music's Rodney Carmichael. Hey, Rodney.
RODNEY CARMICHAEL, BYLINE: Ailsa, what is happening?
CHANG: Hey. OK, this was a complete surprise, right? Like, nobody knew it even existed until it was released?
CARMICHAEL: Yeah. I mean, pretty much. It's kind of blown us all away. We're scrambling over here.
CHANG: What can you tell us about it?
CARMICHAEL: Let me just start off by reminding you that this is the 51st year of hip-hop.
CHANG: Wow.
CARMICHAEL: Right? It's a year of rebirth for hip-hop. And nobody seems more dead set on burning everything down to the ground and starting over again than Kendrick Lamar.
CHANG: (Laughter).
CARMICHAEL: I mean, this is an artist who, even though he's never been afraid of the dark, this album right here feels like his darkest, his most minimalist, his starkest LP by far. It's really what I would call, like, his "Black Album" or his "Makaveli," for the Tupac fans out there. I mean, just listen to this first song, "Wacced Out Murals," where he rhymes about a real mural of him being defaced in his hometown, Compton, this year after he won his battle with Drake.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WACCED OUT MURALS")
KENDRICK LAMAR: (Rapping) Yesterday, somebody whacked out my mural. That energy will make you [expletive] move to Europe. But it's regular for me, yeah, that's for sure. The love and hate is definite without a cure.
CHANG: Yeah, that's intense.
CARMICHAEL: Yeah. You can hear from his tone, man, this dude is still in battle mode, and he's coming for everybody. This is so much bigger than Drake or any one artist. It's about the culture of hip-hop, and he's ready for change.
CHANG: Well, you listened to this whole album. Like, what can you tell us about the feel of "GNX," besides that it's dark?
CARMICHAEL: (Laughter). Well, OK.
CHANG: (Laughter).
CARMICHAEL: Really, what it is is basically Kendrick doubling and tripling down on this spirit of rebuke that he really unleashed on hip-hop this year. I mean, I feel like the album could really be titled, I said what I said, 'cause...
(LAUGHTER)
CARMICHAEL: ...That's all that he is really doing throughout this whole album. The song "Man At The Garden," for example, is basically, like, a reference and maybe even an interpolation of Phil Collins' "In The Air Tonight." It builds real slow, just like that song, and ends with Kendrick just going ballistic.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MAN AT THE GARDEN")
LAMAR: (Rapping) How annoying. Does it angers me to know the lames (ph) can speak on the origins of the game I breathe? That's insane to me. It's important. I deserve it all because it's mine. Tell me why you think you deserve the greatest of all time.
CHANG: Because we're talking about Kendrick, I imagine that there are more surprises, like, beyond the surprise that there was even an album released today. Yeah?
CARMICHAEL: Yeah. Of course, of course. So he works with some familiar names in production, you know, like Sounwave, DJ Dahi. But there are some big surprises, too. Jack Antonoff - he contributes a lot of co-production, and...
CHANG: Wait. Isn't he the producer for Taylor Swift?
CARMICHAEL: Exactly, best known for his production work with the likes of Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, Lorde. But yeah, he's...
CHANG: Wow.
CARMICHAEL: ...Coming into Kendrick's house on this one. But there's also this R&B strain flowing through certain songs on the album. You feel this softer strain that's kind of bubbling underneath this hard, dark exterior that he has. It almost feels like it's a new template that Kendrick's setting for where he wants hip-hop, you know, and specifically, like, masculinity in hip-hop, to go - after he's done burning it down, of course.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HEART PT. 6")
LAMAR: (Rapping) Top had given us dominion in the home he lived in hoping that we'd see some millions, God bless our hearts.
CHANG: That is NPR's Rodney Carmichael. Thank you so much, Rodney.
CARMICHAEL: Thank you, Ailsa.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HEART PT. 6")
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST: (Singing) If you got time and I got time. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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