Kendrick Lamar has released a surprise album called GNX.
The Pulitzer prize-winning rapper teased the release with a one-minute video before the 12-track album was then released.
Lamar’s sixth studio album features multiple appearances from SZA as well as Kamasi Washington and a producer credit for Jack Antonoff on all but one song. Earlier this week, DJ Snake had claimed that Taylor Swift would appear on the album as well.
It caps off a banner year that saw the rapper release a number of songs attacking Drake, hits that led to him nabbing seven Grammy nominations. He achieved major chart hits with Not Like Us and Like That.
The new album doesn’t feature any of the songs from earlier this year but does contain the track Heart Pt 6, after Drake released The Heart Part 6 in May, a diss track aimed at Lamar’s ongoing song series.
“I don’t believe I’m an angry person,” Lamar said earlier this year in an interview. “But I do believe in love and war, and I believe they both need to exist. And my awareness of that allows me to react to things but not identify with them as who I am. Just allowing them to exist and allowing them to flow through me. That’s what I believe.”
Lamar is also set to be the half-time performer at next year’s Super Bowl. It’s a headline gig that’s referenced on Wacced Out Murals, a song on the new album. He raps that Nas had been the “only one” who congratulated him and that his “hard work let Lil’ Wayne down”.
“Rap music is still the most impactful genre to date,” Lamar said in a statement at the time. “And I’ll be there to remind the world why. They got the right one.”
His last album, 2022’s Mr Morale & the Big Steppers, was named best rap album at the Grammys. He also became the first non-classical or jazz artist to win the Pulitzer prize for music for his 2017 album Damn.
