GNX

What a great album. It bumps, just like "Not Like Us"; I'm guessing that's Mustard I'm detecting, though Kendrick has found a new flow for those types of beats as well. Yet, as on every album, he balances great beats with a couple of long-toothed introspective tracks. It'd be sad if he didn't.

It's getting so hard to rank his albums. I'm still putting TPAB on top. I think that's a combination of nostalgia and superiority. But GKMC, DAMN, MMBS, and GNX are all mingling. GKMC gets the earliness bias. But GNX is honestly one of the best collections of beats I think he's done. It's not his most profound album but the vibes are so strong. He's just cruising. While other rappers are struggling to mold their legacy out of clay, he's just dumping cement all over his. I can't imagine there's anyone more productive in greatness in the history of hip hop. Everyone else either flashed quickly or fell asleep for a while. Kendrick never slept. He had a kid and came out as strong as ever. He continues to innovate, not to the artistic heights of TPAB, but by showing us what's possible in a great and hard-working MC.

Can Kendrick's catalog summarize the entire value of rap? What's missing? He has politics, introspection, city love, violence, wordplay, musicality, great beats, humor, jazz, soul... I guess he doesn't really have rock, but I don't care much about rock rap. Who has something he doesn't have? He's not the funniest rapper, but some of his stuff is pretty funny. Ye did more for rap fusion, but Kendrick is insanely versatile. Does he serve and represent his community as well as someone like Pac or Jay-Z? I'm not sure. I'm so far from those communities. I only see the music itself. Musically, how is Kendrick not the GOAT?

GNX is a straightforward classic.

Sometimes I wish musicians leaned on nostalgia like movies. Every franchise movie is excessively nostalgic. But I would die for Bob Dylan, Kendrick, Bon Iver, anyone to do callbacks to their old stuff. Maybe it's a real artist's nature to press forward.