Lamar takes it back to basics
Kendrick Lamar surprised everyone when he dropped new album ‘GNX’.
The well-received album was soon occupying all of the top positions on all of the US charts and, despite only alluding to his beef with Drake, it started bringing up bad memories for his rival.
The Toronto rapper responded by co-hosting a young Canadians live stream and throwing some childish shade on artists, such as the Weeknd and Steve Lacy, before making his most bizarre move yet.
Drake has now sued both Spotify and his own record company, UMG, for conspiracy — suggesting they artificially inflated his rivals diss track earlier this summer.
A bizarre move being widely ridiculed by all, it suggests a new air of desperation for an artist whose own music has been consistently ignored throughout the year by most music fans.
Back in the early 90s, legendary rap group A Tribe Called Quest warned us that Industry Rule Number 4080 suggests that “record company people are shady”.
It’s a business where payola and corruption, and racism and misogyny, and all sorts of dodgy practices have been rife and, long before the Tribe, there were talented artists who suffered at the hands of big record companies. Many died broke, bitter, and unknown, and many more found solace in the bottle or the needle.
Record company scandals persisted, and there are very few of us who work in the music industry who would deny that it remains cutthroat and morally corrupt at times.
Spotify, themselves, are notoriously shady. Countless musicians have called them out on this over the years.
It’s generally a format that benefits the very big artists, but it’s ironic that Drake has come for them — seeing as he is more or less the poster boy for the era where Spotify’s influence has been biggest.
I’ll never forget the time he released his Scorpion album, and had it pushed relentlessly on every Spotify listener in a way that was nearly as vulgar as U2’s Apple deal back in the day.
When the beef with Kendrick Lamar escalated this year his response did not befit that of a so-called big name rapper. A few terrible musical responses included one in which he used AI to recreate Tupac’s voice. Ironically, this was also withdrawn due to legal action by Tupac’s estate — but it was only one of his many cringeworthy moves. He eventually released tonnes of music and other content for free online, but it was largely ignored, and all the while Kendrick’s chief diss track “Not Like Us” was becoming one of the biggest rap tunes of all time.
This track, the subject of Drake’s legal action, makes some inflammatory comments about Drake, but it’s telling that the legal dispute revolves more around streams or payola rather than the lyrics.
Drake, the guy who regularly jumps on hot music trends and changes his accent with the wind, is looking more and more isolated and his own legacy is being damaged.
Ultimately, it’s hard to compare a popcorn rap artist such as Drake — who has plenty of bangers in his career — to one of the greatest rappers of all time, Kendrick and his imperious discography.
GNX is back to basics and far removed from the introspective Mr Morale and the Big Steppers, a sprawling ambitious album that went very deep and was very ambitious. This is more like Damn, the follow up to To Pimp a Butterfly, and it’s far more concise. Kendrick continues with one of 2024’s biggest themes, by reimagining LA’s huge hip-hop and funk heritage, and channeling synth heavy G Funk, Hyphy, and other West Coast sounds into a series of club bangers.
DJ Mustard, who is having a huge year, is on board — as are long-time collaborators Sounwave, Dahi, Kamasi Washington and Terrace Martin, plus pop supremo Jack Antonoff. The slower R’n’B jams are very satisfying. Too many rappers are still just doing the 90s thing of getting a singer on the hook.
That sound is rightly universally lauded by those of us who were there and the new generation, but these days it often feels like it’s phoned in.
Obviously it helps when SZA is your mate (she’s on two). However, Kendrick got creative on these tracks, conceptually, and even using fairly obvious sample sources managed to make some magic happen. It’s Kendrick’s year and GNX is another essential listen!
