In a weird way, do we kind of have to thank Drake for this? Kendrick was just minding his own business, releasing sprawling, large-scale albums and bringing an equally-ambitious stage show around the world at his own moderate pace when Drake poked the bear. And then we all learned what happens when you poke the bear.

During his many-song, week-long battle with Drake, Kendrick gave us the grand, multi-part diss suite “Euphoria” and the sinister “Meet the Grahams,” a song that felt more like a horror film than a rap song, but the track that towered above the rest was “Not Like Us.” It’s a Mustard-produced banger that not only called Drake a “certified pedophile,” it also reminded Drake and the rest of the world that Kendrick can make the kinds of club songs that Drake makes, and that he can do it better than Drake. Its live debut was an international event and so was its music video. It’s already become a standard amongst stadium organists at sporting events. It’s the reason Kendrick is up for multiple major awards at the 2025 Grammys and it’s probably the reason Kendrick is headlining the 2025 Super Bowl Halftime Show. And it’s pretty hard to imagine that GNX would exist without it.

Like Kendrick’s Drake diss tracks, the album was dropped at a random time with no advance warning. At 44 minutes and 20 seconds, it’s his shortest album by a pretty significant margin, and it’s one of his only albums that doesn’t seem to have a long, drawn-out narrative arc throughout. It leaves an impact right away, just like “Not Like Us.” It sounds like he went with his gut and rarely overthought things, just like he did on “Not Like Us.” It also has a few other “Not Like Us”-esque bangers that Kendrick might not have ever written if things went a different way and he spent 2024 hard at work on another sprawling album like Mr. Morale. “Squabble Up” and “TV Off,” the latter of which is one of two Mustard-produced songs on here, sound like direct sequels to “Not Like Us” and they sound just as ready to light up a stadium. Mustard also produced “Hey Now,” a song that’s a little darker but still powered by that unmistakable Mustard bounce. “Peekabo” has some of that same energy too. And just like “Not Like Us” did, these songs remind the world that Kendrick hasn’t let his high brow art side get to his head. His bangers are still better than everybody else’s bangers too.

In the midst of a year in which Drake wasn’t the only person taking shots at Kendrick, he has some words for his haters. “I’ll kill ’em all before I let ’em kill my joy” is the sixth line on the album. “It used to be fuck that n****, but now it’s plural/Fuck everybody, that’s on my body” are the eighth and ninth. Later on that same opening song (“Wacced Out Murals”), Kendrick acknowledges Lil Wayne publicly expressing disappointment that it was Kendrick booked for the Super Bowl and not him. “Used to bump Tha Carter III, I held my Rollie chain proud/Irony, I think my hard work let Lil Wayne down… Won the Super Bowl and Nas the only one congratulate me.” Snoop Dogg catches a stray for posting Drake’s Kendrick diss track that used AI to recreate Snoop and Tupac’s voices, and a lot of other unnamed rappers do as well. (Too many other good one-liners to quote, but here’s one more: “I’m doin’ what COVID did, they’ll never get over it.”) During the kind of tension-rising verse that Kendrick pulls off better than just about everyone, he ends “Man at the Garden” with this mic-drop: “Tell me why you think you deserve the greatest of all time, motherfucker.” Clearly, the fire behind Kendrick’s ruthless string of Drake diss tracks is still aflame.

But GNX is not just a Drake diss album and it’s not just an album-length version of “Not Like Us.” It has no lack of the kinds of vast, immersive moments that Kendrick includes on albums like Mr. Morale and To Pimp A Butterfly, like “Luther,” a romantic soul/rap hybrid where SZA plays the role of Kendrick’s counterpart and Kamasi Washington contributes his jazzy touch. (That one also has co-production from the album’s two most frequently-used producers, Sounwave and Jack Antonoff.) Before the aforementioned “Man at the Garden” disses every other rapper to ever exist, it embraces the kind of slow-burning build that so many of Kendrick’s most gripping deep cuts have over the years. “Reincarnated” finds Kendrick shout-rapping over the beat from Tupac’s “Made N****z,” and yeah maybe that’s kind of a nod at Tupac’s posthumous presence in the Drake beef, but it’s also the latest in a long line of songs where Kendrick positions himself as someone capable of keeping Pac’s spirit alive, and I’ve still yet to hear a song where he doesn’t earn it. “Dodger Blue” ropes in Terrace Martin, and it’s the kind of funky West Coast love letter that Kendrick has long excelled at, right down to its title.

Unfazed by Drake using “The Heart Part 6” as the title to the song that lost him the feud, Kendrick picks his “Heart” series back up with his own “Heart Pt. 6,” and it finds him unraveling a stream-of-consciousness screed over an ethereal sample of SWV’s 1996 R&B ballad “Use Your Heart.” SZA reappears to close out the album with another soulful ballad, “Gloria,” a song that looks at Kendrick’s past and current relationships and sonically and thematically connects to Mr. Morale. It’s easy to peg GNX as a back-to-basics, straight-up rap album, but moments like these contradict that.

Outside of SZA, what GNX is notable for not having, is big name guests. The guests that do show up are largely lesser known and local to Kendrick’s community, and we have to assume this is Kendrick using his platform to elevate artists he believes in. All of them rise to the occasion. The title track is an all-West Coast posse cut with Peysoh, YoungThreat, and Hitta J3, the latter of whom had Kendrick on a remix of his debut single back in 2016. LA rappers Dody6 and AzChike give standout verses on “Hey Now” and “Peekaboo,” respectively. Putting on for his city has long been something that Kendrick’s stuck with no matter how famous he gets, and this feels like his latest continuation of that. Outside of guest rappers, Kendrick also has Regional Mexican singer Deyra Barrera on three songs, “Wacced Out Murals,” “Reincarnated,” and “Gloria.”

As I’m writing this, I’ve heard the album three times in a row. Kendrick Lamar albums always take a lot more than three listens to digest, and even with this one being shorter and often punchier, I still think GNX is no exception. But I already know that I’m excited to keep listening, and I know that I’m excited an album like this exists. It’s different for Kendrick. He’s given us so many epic, cinematic albums that it’s kind of refreshing to hear him bang out something a little more down-to-earth. Even DAMN., which felt like the closest thing that Kendrick had made to a traditional rap album since his pre-good kid, m.A.A.d city days, still feels more sprawling than GNX. I’m glad Kendrick can do both. I’m glad he can give us a fired-up album like this one, and I won’t be surprised if his next album attempts to get even more ambitious than the self-reflective, therapeutic concept album he released in 2022 or the hip hop/jazz odyssey he released in 2015. It’s an intentionally smaller-scale album but it doesn’t feel small because Kendrick is the one doing it. The claim that Kendrick made that ruffled Drake and J. Cole’s feathers this year (“Motherfuck the big three, it’s just big me”) was something that most of us didn’t even blink at. GNX is a reminder of why.

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