During his Apple Music chat with Ebro Darden and Nadeska Alexis, Kendrick Lamar broke down his switch from the personal vibes of Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers to the raw West Coast energy of GNX.
Around 38 minutes in, Ebro asked about what was going through K Dot’s mind between dropping Morale and GNX, and why he went all-in on that heavy West Coast sound. “My cousins were like DJ Quik, and [Dr.] Dre, these folks that my people were playing. So I always had that DNA, and you heard that DNA a little bit in good kid, m.A.A.d city, but I wanted to tell my story first,” he shared. “Fast forward to GNX, I felt it was just a perfect time ’cause not only the energy was lost, but it was an energy that was bubbling inside of me as well. I wanted to go back to the forefront of the bite and the grit of rap.”
While Mr. Morale dug deep into Kendrick’s personal life, touching on trauma and his rocky relationship with fame, GNX came straight for the jugular with banging beats and a tighter runtime.
“Just hard raps, and hard-ass beats. And that’s the basics for me,” he added. “I thought about, ‘Damn, what I like when I was a kid? Hard raps and good beats that’s smacking, right?’ It was a great transition from Mr. Morale, because that was my most intimate. I wanted to go inside my psyche and my withdrawals and see how it connects with the public and who can relate. So, during this time around I think it was necessary to come out of that cocoon and feel like, ‘Okay, I’ve arrived now. I can spread my wings and show every state of who I am as far as Kendrick Lamar.'”
The move paid off big time – GNX became his fifth No. 1 album after a year that saw him in hip-hop’s biggest beef in ages. The album’s packed with West Coast features and sound, something he’d played with before on good kid, m.A.A.d city, but never this hard.
