Wolf’s main speciality is his extremely high level durability. But it really makes you think, if this dude even had a SHRED of self-preservation and mixed at least a little bit of dodging in his fights, dude might’ve been a greater monster than we realize.

Dude kept tanking attacks from Jake and even when he got knocked out in the end, the dude shortly recovered not too soon after. Jake was nearing or AT his limit.

I was doing a casual listening session of my playlist on Spotify and then it came up… now I can’t stop looping it.

The song was obviously already heavenly before but something about it just snapped in place for my brain and now it sounds like the thesis of MY life. Anyone else feel the same way about the song?

And so did Kanye, Carti, Drake…

I swear I’ve done multiple side missions, why isn’t this being finished?

It’s been over a year and a half since Kendrick surprise dropped his 6th studio album, GNX. By now, this means everyone’s quite used to the album, its themes, and how it sounds.

‼️** [QUICK NOTICE: THIS IS A DISCUSSION POST, WHICH MEANS I’M GONNA YAP TO DEATH!!! If you’re NOT fond of that, you can skip ahead to the bottom, I have a TL;DR ready (might still be a little long anyways). If you’re willing to read though, then just strap in.**]

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Before I go any deeper, I’ll first deal with the obvious reasons why (a significant of) people didn’t like GNX:

1. It doesn’t necessarily have a concept (and I’ll explore later why that’s not actually true).
- Some people don’t really see GNX as an album. Matter of fact, a few people even consider it a commercial mixtape. This is because all of Kendrick’s albums before this had a deep theme, diamond cut concept, and most glaringly, a clear narrative framework that strong held everything together. Whether it was the way GKMC behaved as a film, the sociopolitical, racial and personal introspection of To Pimp a Butterfly, or the moral duality of DAMN, listeners knew exactly what lens they were supposed to view the album through (or maybe even didn’t know, because the themes were that complex). But GNX? GNX doesn’t present itself this way on first listen. Instead of immediately revealing some amazing grand thesis on first listen, it feels really fragmented, sometimes aggressive, and relatively unconcerned with guiding the listener towards a singular message. For some fans who came to this surprise drop getting ready to hear some tightly woven concept album, that was definitely disappointing (and I’ll even be honest, this was me for a while).

2. It lacked some of the emotional and lyrical depth people always knew and expected from Kendrick.
- Obviously, Kendrick built his reputation on dense lyricism, high class storytelling, social commentary, introspection, and generally super high quality work. Compared to albums like GKMC, fucking TPAB, DAMN, and MMATBS? GNX didn’t make sense. It was more focused on energy and attitude. Again, it wasn’t concerned with unpacking a concept. Whether that’s true or not is debatable, and I’ll take you up on it, but it’s frequent criticism I always see (people always talk about that boom-bap-bam bar as a recurrent example 🤦‍♂️).

3. Aside from lyricism, this reason might be a little more glaring: the production and song choices feel too conventional (or too rooted in the conflict that he had that same year, but I won’t talk about that, just to avoid issues).
- Some people probably thought he would push boundaries forward sonically, or adhere to something harder to digest. Instead, GNX fully embraced west coast sounds, bangers and victory lap shit. It wasn’t a reinvention at all. It was just Kendrick enjoying a moment around his LA neighborhood, having a victory lap.

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Now that I’ve dealt with those 3 obvious reasons, I’ll now explore the final, fourth, and least obvious reason.

First, many people should probably know what the medium/media concept theory for Kendrick’s studio albums are. If not, I’ll basically just say what it is:
> Section.80 is a novel.
> good kid, m.A.A.d is a film.
> To Pimp A Butterfly is a poem.
> DAMN. is a magazine.
> Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers is a theater play.

And while I’m at it, I’ll include my own iterations with two of Kendrick’s mixtapes and UU:
> The Kendrick Lamar EP is a birth certificate (artistic rebirth from K-Dot and using his actual name).
> Overly Dedicated is a portfolio (he’s displaying his skills and rapping abilities on this mixtape, as well as his influences and potential, and proving he belongs).
> untitled unmastered is a featurette (a featurette’s a 20 to 40 minute short film, basically acting as a behind the scenes, which is what UU is since it’s a collection of B-sides from the TPAB sessions).
{Not exactly sure what Black Panther would work as. I’d thought of soundtrack but that feels too obvious, so idk.}

Cool concept right? Look at that word, “concept”, again.
GNX doesn’t have an obvious concept at first. And pulling in this theory, here’s what I think the fourth reason is:

4. GNX doesn’t seem to have a media/medium concept. It just looks like a basic album, made for radio play. West Coast radio play, for that matter. This appears to break the chronological media theory line, and this likely unsatisfied some people.
- This is probably the least discussed criticism of GNX because most people don’t consciously think about Kendrick’s albums this way. But I think it’s there regardless, and it’s VERY important to why people didn’t appreciate GNX that much. Part of what makes Kendrick’s discography feel so unique is that each project doesn’t just have a theme, it feels like it’s being communicated through a different media form, like I explained already. GNX, on the surface doesn’t appear to be doing that shit at all. There’s no spoken word pieces tying everything together. No obvious narrative. No theatrical framing. No magazine structure. No apparent literary device. Instead, GNX initially presents itself as a straightforward West Coast rap album full of bangers, regional pride, victory laps, and aggressive energy. To many people, that’s a step backwards, and not cause the music is “worse”, but because it looks like it’s abandoning a pattern that Kendrick spent over a decade establishing. If every previous album is a statement about both content and form, GNX legitimately seems like it’s not even JUST an album at first glance alone, it feels like…. a commercial mixtape. That’s where the disconnect comes from. Some of us weren’t just looking for another amazing Kendrick album like usual, but also what sort of medium Kendrick would approach next. And when some people couldn’t immediately identify one, they assumed there wasn’t one at all.

But, nah, this is wrong. It goes deeper. Literally.

There was a quote I saw a couple hours before making this post, on something completely unrelated, some dog controlling IG reel or whatever. I saw the top comment repeat what the video creator said. I’ll even link it right below:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DWOzKlnuWPw/?comment_id=18096581987085695

“Genetics load the gun, environment pulls the trigger.”

When I saw that, something about that connected with Kendrick’s albums for me. It reframed them as different angles on the same core tension: the inherited wiring (talent, trauma, personality, family patterns, race) versus the external forces that decide whether that gun ever gets fired (systems, fame, streets, industry, relationships, America).
I’ll show how this (somewhat obviously) connects to Kendrick.

First, the environment is squeezing and pulling that trigger.
> Section.80: He literally talks about the environment shaping how the people behave in this album (Keisha, Tammy, Kendrick). The gun’s already loaded when we meet these characters through poverty, absent parents, normalized violence and ESPECIALLY the crack epidemic and Ronald Reagan’s politics in the 1980s. But the album is mainly showing what happens when the environment is squeezing that trigger, and Kendrick’s mainly an observer at this point.
> GKMC: Focuses on Kendrick himself. He’s a good kid (genetics and his disposition), but trapped in a “m.A.A.d” city (the environment). The album is a literal timeline of how peer pressure, gang culture, and institutional poverty constantly try to force his hand to pull the trigger.

Second, the intersection between genetics and environment
> TPAB: It’s where the two forces collide in a massive systemic critique. Kendrick analyzes how institutional environments "pimp" the natural brilliance and genetic talent of Black artists and youth, institutionalizing them and turning them against themselves. Here the black has two barrels. One is loaded by genetics and culture (black excellence, resilience, the weight of ancestry, his own talent). The other is loaded by the environment of USA itself. Capitalism, racism, the entertainment industry, the need to perform, etc. The album is him realizing the trigger is being pulled from multiple directions at once, including from inside.

And third, demonstrating how genetics load that gun.
> DAMN: This one internalizes the dynamic. The genetics are his pride, his gifts, his ego, his spiritual wiring.… the environment is fame, money, public opinion, and his own success. Tracks like PRIDE, FEAR and especially DUCKWORTH, are basically him examining which force is currently holding the gun and whether he can stop it from firing. Kendrick explores the idea that helplessness, pride, and fear are baked into his heritage, feeling like a spiritual predisposition he just can’t appear to escape. If your temperament, beliefs, fears, and instincts are inherited and shaped by environment, then where the fuck is the independent self that supposedly chooses?
DAMN never really fully answers that question.

> MMATBS: And this? This is arguably the most important one in the context of how it works to assist GNX’s case, behaving as a sort of closing of a book. When it comes to this album, it’s not even just about how genetics load the gun. It’s more importantly about disarming the gun itself, because I wouldn’t say you’re unloading the gun because that sounds like you’re erasing history. The gun still exists, the ammunition existed, the trigger was pulled already. The goal is understanding the mechanism well enough to stop repeating the cycle. That aligns closely with the album’s emphasis on generational trauma. The central concern isn’t merely healing oneself but explicitly about preventing the transfer of damage to the next person. Whitney literally tells their child (or Kendrick himself?) that they broke a generational curse. Mother I Sober is extremely critical for this reason. He’s taking apart the gun so that it can never be fired in the same way again.

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So, how does this transfer to GNX? How it’s indeed a medium/media concept? How it deals with the gun? And more importantly why this means it deserves more respect?

1. GNX is a cassette tape when it comes to the medium/media concept.
- Rawer, more immediate, less concerned with grand conceptual framing and more concerned with replayability, attitude, and regional identity, while being nostalgic (you can see this on heart pt. 6 and gloria). You sort of pass a cassette tape around to people you know close right? This is catered towards the west coast sound. GNX is a cassette tape for the west coast. In my eyes, maybe that’s why there was no rollout, lmao. Someone basically found an unmarked tape in Kendrick’s GNX (pun intended I guess) and pressed play.

2. How does GNX deal with the gun? After Kendrick dismantled it in the last album, he doesn’t even focus on it this time. He just sets it down.
- The gun isn’t being loaded by inherited conditions, isn’t being pulled by the environment in real time, isn’t being historically contextualized or physiologically examined, and you know, isn’t being dramatically dismantled on stage or something, since that already happened. He laid it to rest. He returns to Compton, but the return doesn’t read as the environment reclaiming him. It reads as a choice made from a position of relative freedom. The low key features, the regional focus, the deliberate lack of grand conceptual framing. None of it, any of it, feels like a reaction to pressure. It feels like someone who no longer needs to perform the tension to prove he understands it. None of it feels like genetics or environment weighing on him. GNX is the album where nature and environment is finally just context rather than direct forces playing a hand in anything.

3. And finally, the main big question that should be answered…… how does this means GNX should earn more respect?
Because it’s not forcing itself to be analytical. It’s relaxed. Fun.
- This feels way more obvious than it should be, right?
GNX should earn more respect because it’s breaking away from the underlying serious and generational molds and issues his last albums presented. He’s allowing himself, periodically, to have fun. Even DAMN, which was a commercial and accessible blockbuster, has rather depressing shit like FEEL, FEAR, and if you’re taking the reverse order into context, then it’s just plain sad all around regardless, because he’s taking the road of wickedness in that path. GNX? I don’t think there’s a single sad song here. Like actually. Some of them are introspective, but none ever get me feeling like what I’m listening to is super weighty or depressive. Even reincarnated, which is likely by the far the densest song on the album, periodically explores themes of past chains, only to talk about breaking them. That’s why the cassette tape medium works so well here. Cassettes don’t invite theory… nor don’t ask to be analyzed or deconstructed. You just press play, literally. GNX moves like that. It presents itself as transmission rather than argument. After five albums of wrestling with the mechanism, this one simply plays the music. And you know what, maybe that’s why some people thought it was a mixtape. Because before GNX, Kendrick never just simply played the music without it having some sort of underlying depth under it. If any other artist released GNX, it’d be a whole different story. But he did, which is why some people believed it that way.
You don’t theorize a cassette tape man. You just sit and enjoy the music. And that’s what Kendrick wanted out of you. It deserves respect for that. If we’re using the cassette tape medium example, Kendrick is saying, that he no longer has to prove HIS trauma, HIS growth, or HIS genius to you. He just wants you to press play.

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TL;DR (this section might still be long anyways lmao):

Basically, people don’t respect GNX because it doesn’t have a concept, lacks the lyrical (and super emotional) power of previous projects, and the production and the general vibe is off.

The fourth and less obvious reason has to do with the media album format theory. S.80 is a novel, GKMC is a film, TPAB is a poem, DAMN is a magazine and MMATBS is a theater play. The fourth problem is that GNX doesn’t appear to fit into that box. It feels like a generic radio play album. But that’s wrong. A quote that I picked up from an IG reel before making this post was: “Genetics load the gun, environment pulls the trigger.” That connects to Kendrick perfectly.

S.80 is literally about how environment shapes people, specifically the crack epidemic. It’s realizing the gun exists and it’s loaded. GKMC is about peer pressure and environment as well, and how that plays into him almost pulling the trigger. The trigger is pulled in real time AND/OR Kendrick is dodging the bullets. TPAB is a sociopolitical bomb that historically analyzes who made the gun and examines it. DAMN goes into spiritual fate and generational curses, and basically, its separation between genetics and environment destabilized. MMATBS is about therapy, as well as approaching and breaking generational curses, so Kendrick focuses on disarm the gun itself.

And what about GNX?
- Since Kendrick has practically dealt with all his generational trauma, GNX is about having fun. In the media theory, it’s a cassette tape, because you’re not analyzing anything, he’s having fun.
- When it comes to the gun, he set it down. Again, he doesn’t want you to focus on his issues. He wants you to have fun to the music.
- And this means? That GNX should be respected because it’s literally what Kendrick wants to do. He wants to have fun, isn’t interested in examining generational issues, isn’t trying to make the entire album deep or have a deep underlying theme. He’s having fun! If people don’t understand that then fine, their loss. This album wasn’t for everyone and it showed. You don’t have to like it. But the point is to respect what Kendrick wants to make.

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This took like basically 3 hours to make man. Looking forward to what you guys think!

Section.80 > Ab Soul’s Outro*
(thesis recap of the entire album and sort of an existential closer for the album’s exploration of compton life, reaganomics, crack epidemic fallout, survival, gang violence and identity)

GKMC > SAMIDOT
(self explanatory, moral center of the entire album, literally the climax and is two part beast of gang culture, peer pressure, and coming age of guilt. raps from 3 perspective’s; dave’s brother, keisha’s sister, and himself, all wondering if they’ll last to make a difference)

TPAB > Mortal Man
(also self explanatory, it’s literally the album’s philosophical and emotional finale about legacy, mortality, leadership, loyalty and the pressure of being a voice for black culture. the poem and the 6 minute discussion with tupac wraps up the album beautifully)

DAMN > FEAR.
(yet again, also self explanatory. deals with several fears from ages 7, 17 and 27– fear of his mother and childhood terror, fear of death in compton, fear of everything he’s built falling down. demonstrates how fear is inherited and internalized)

MMATBS > Mother I Sober
(this probably goes without saying too. almost 7 minutes long and it’s the rawest therapy session of the entire album, kendrick’s mom thinking he was molested because SHE was, approaching generational abuse, guilt, sobriety, and him and whitney finally breaking that generational curse)

GNX > wacced out murals**
(probably not the deepest on the album but it is the longest so i’ll make an argument for it anyways. it references an actual compton mural of kendrick was vandalized after NLU. the metaphor in the song is for legacy and public image being destroyed or defaced and how quick respect can be tarnished by the industry, power plays and betrayals while still committing to authenticity)

*Keisha’s Song is deeper than this, probably.
**i’d say reincarnated or heart pt.6 is more introspective and deeper but yeah

For me personally, it's when CyHi on So Appalled said:

“I met this girl on Valentine's Day, fucked her in May

She found out about April, so she chose to march”

Those eight bonus tracks feel too intrinsically different to me. As I see it, The Estate Sale is sort of like Tyler’s ye. Short project but with large emotional value based on Tyler’s state of mind. SORRY NOT SORRY has a similar vibe to Violent Crimes in the sense of Tyler coming to terms of how his life is and deciding if his current way of life results in him changing himself forever (which it did).

Anyone else feel the same? Or just me?

On May 13, 2022, which is funnily enough a day after his fiancée Whitney Alford’s birthday, Kendrick dropped his 5th studio album, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers (and it's also his 7th album overall if you count untitled unmastered. and Black Panther The Album, 8th if you feel like including Overly Dedicated). This album was his first release under his creative company pgLang, the first album in 5 years (1,855 days) after DAMN., and also more importantly, was his final project with Top Dawg Entertainment, reflecting a SERIOUS turn of direction for Kendrick creatively and spiritually as a person. Kendrick executive produced the album under the nickname “oklama” which was also a website subtly referencing MMATBS in the months leading to the album’s release.

It was not particularly intended to be as commercial as DAMN., as it’s more of a therapy album. As a result, it’s Kendrick’s most polarizing album to date, but it’s still aging quite well (in my opinion).

Discussion questions:
- Favorite songs?
- How often do you keep this album and its songs in rotation?
- Has it aged well for you?
- Do you find the themes of this album to relevant to you and/or Kendrick today?
- Compared with GNX, do you think Kendrick’s sound has developed properly since then within these 4 years? Or has it gotten stale? Why?
- Is this your favorite album from his discography?
- Do you think Kendrick’s next project will be close or similar to this in soundscape and/or subject matter?
- Is this TOP 3 in his discography?