Kendrick Lamar from Pulitzer to pop

On his 2024 album GNX, the rap icon bridges artistic ambition and mass appeal

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Risking Legacy for Reinvention

In 2024, Kendrick Lamar found himself at a crossroads. After two decades in hip-hop—far longer than most rap careers last—he could have easily faded into legacy act status. Instead, he engineered a remarkable comeback: winning the year's most-watched rap battle against Drake with the chart topping hit “Not Like Us,” landing the Super Bowl halftime show, and releasing GNX, a surprise album named after the legendary 1987 Buick Grand National—a car that embodied Black excellence and power. The album reimagines what a Kendrick album can be. But this triumphant return required solving a problem that has plagued later career artists for generations: how to reach a mainstream audience without sacrificing the complexity that made you great.

Solving the Narrative Debt Dilemma

The challenge with Kendrick's work comes with what Eugene Wei has termed "narrative debt” - the accumulated weight of storytelling and meaning that his music carries. His albums are dense, layered epics that tackle systemic racism, personal trauma, faith, and mental health. After winning a Pulitzer Prize for DAMN., which critics celebrated for its lyrical complexity and deep ties to Black musical history, Kendrick's work has inspired an almost conspiratorial level of analysis from fans (call it KAnon). The density of his lyrical flow and the depth of his references can make listening to Kendrick feel like learning a new language - you almost need a Duolingo-style app just to get started.

Unlike his previous albums, which were intricate concept pieces where every song connected to a larger narrative—think of good kid, m.A.A.d city's coming-of-age story or Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers' therapy sessions—GNX takes a simpler approach. It's a collection of standalone songs, each one crafted to work independently rather than serve a grand conceptual vision. This departure from complex album-length storytelling might seem like a retreat from ambition, but it actually allows Kendrick to focus his considerable skills on perfecting individual moments. Each track becomes its own self-contained world, allowing casual listeners to drop in anywhere while rewarding close listening.

Within this more accessible framework, Kendrick found a solution to his narrative debt: create pop songs with hidden depths, tracks that work both as radio hits and as complex artistic statements. He achieves this balance through two complementary approaches. First, he creates songs structured for pop radio success, with memorable hooks and crisp production. Second, and more subtly, he infuses these accessible songs with deep local references and regional sounds. This emphasis on localism—a growing movement in hip-hop where artists proudly represent their geographic roots—pushes back against the uniformity of mainstream rap. For Kendrick, being from Compton, California isn't just biographical detail; it's musical DNA that shapes everything from his drum patterns to his vocal delivery.

Kendrick's California Sound

Take “Squabble Up,” the album's lead single. The song announces Kendrick's rebirth through a brilliant fusion of pop accessibility and West Coast authenticity. The production builds around a sample of Debbie Deb's 1984 Latin freestyle hit “When I Hear Music”—a dance floor classic that only hit #43 on the Billboard R&B chart but became legendary in DJ circles. This sample gets transformed through classic West Coast G-funk production, with squealing Moog synths that connect Kendrick to Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and Nate Dogg's legacy.

The localism goes deeper than just sound. When Kendrick name-drops jazz saxophonist Kamasi Washington (Woke up lookin' for the broccoli / High-key, keep a horn on me, that Kamasi), he's not just shouting out a collaborator—he's grounding himself in L.A.'s thriving jazz scene. When he adopts vocal styles reminiscent of the late Drakeo the Ruler, he's paying homage to regional rap history. Even the drum patterns connect to specific geographic legacies. In "Squabble Up," at the end of each eight-bar phrase, the drums hit with a distinctive "boom boom boom boom" pattern that directly echoes hyphy-era Oakland hip-hop classics like D-Lo's "No Ho." As our engineer Brandon McFarland points out, these rhythmic choices show Kendrick isn't just representing Compton or L.A., but "galvanizing all of the West Coast" through subtle production details that resonate with longtime regional listeners.

While “Squabble Up” demonstrates how Kendrick can embed regional authenticity within a pop framework, his ability to marry different musical worlds reaches its fullest expression on “Luther.” Here, he moves beyond geographic connections to create conversations across generations of Black music, proving that his pop evolution doesn't mean abandoning his artistic ambitions—it means expanding them. The track reunites him with SZA, extending a creative partnership that began with 2014's experimental "Babylon" and grew through "Doves in the Wind" (2017) and the Black Panther soundtrack hit "All the Stars" (2018). Together they take on an ambitious challenge: breathing new life into "If This World Were Mine," a song that traces its own evolution from Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's 1967 original through Luther Vandross and Cheryl Lynn's 1982 rendition.

Cross-Generational Conversations

The production on “Luther” makes this generational conversation explicit. When Kendrick begins singing, the track samples Vandross's distinctive vocal tone. Lynn's voice appears to introduce SZA, creating a double duet across time. A half-diminished seventh chord with a raised eleventh—a complex harmony common in gospel music—appears in both versions, bridging sacred and secular traditions. Most striking is Kendrick's vocal transformation—trading his typically sharp, percussive flow for a melodic delivery that channels R&B crooners, showing how he can adapt his voice to serve the song's romantic message while still maintaining his distinctive presence.

Lyrically, the song weaves together multiple levels of meaning. "Roman numeral seven" references both biblical passages about marriage and Kendrick's seventh album, while a nod to Snoop Dogg's "Drop It Like It's Hot" grounds the track in West Coast hip-hop history. Most powerfully, SZA references Tupac's poem "The Rose That Grew From Concrete," transforming his metaphor about resilience into a celebration of love blooming in harsh environments. Just as the production spans generations of R&B, the lyrics connect hip-hop's past to its present.

Televising the Revolution

The album's commercial breakthrough "TV Off" (featuring Lefty Gunplay) demonstrates how Kendrick can have his cake and eat it too. Working again with DJ Mustard (who produced "Not Like Us"), the track maintains the energy of their earlier battle track while adding layers of commentary about hip-hop's commercialization. DJ Mustard's signature production style—with its sparse, hard-hitting drums and menacing synth stabs—provides the perfect backdrop for this duality. The beat starts with a flip of Monk Higgins' "MacArthur Park," its orchestral sample giving way to the producer's trademark bounce, signaling both artistic ambition and club-ready accessibility.

The track works simultaneously as a Super Bowl-ready banger and a critique of the attention economy, referencing Gil Scott-Heron's "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" while acknowledging "this revolution been televised." The irony of delivering this message in a potential Super Bowl song isn't lost on Kendrick; it's part of the point. When the beat switches halfway through—marked by Mustard's signature producer tag—the production strips back to its essential elements, allowing Kendrick's critique of commercialization to cut through with devastating clarity. Even as the song builds to its climax, Kendrick's commitment to regionalism emerges one final time. His closing lines place him "walking New Orleans with the etiquette of LA"—a subtle nod to the Super Bowl's host city while asserting his unshakeable West Coast identity. It's a perfect encapsulation of how GNX operates: even at its most commercially ambitious moments, the album never loses sight of where Kendrick comes from.

Balancing Art and Audience

With GNX, Kendrick pulls off what seemed impossible: creating an album to satisfy all audiences from casual listeners to KAnon followers. When Kendrick says “F*** being rational, give em what they ask for” on “TV Off,” he's actually describing his sophisticated solution to the narrative debt problem. He's giving audiences the accessibility they want while maintaining the depth and regional authenticity that made him great. By bridging mainstream appeal and artistic integrity, Kendrick's GNX may set a precedent for how veteran artists can remain relevant in an ever-changing industry.

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