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Rb Hip Hop

Kendrick Lamar Returns With Surprise Drop of New Album ‘GNX’: Listen

K. Dot caps off his epic 2024 with a new project.

Kendrick Lamar

Kendrick Lamar

pgLang

Kendrick Lamar stamped his 2024 rap MVP campaign with a brand new album when GNX hit streaming services without any sort of warning on Friday (Nov. 22) around noon ET.

Initially, a GNX teaser arrived on YouTube in the form of a one-minute snippet, and fans hoped it meant the start of a rollout.


But that wasn’t it, as Kenny went back to back and didn’t waste any time in following up with the 12-track GNX album via pgLang.

SZA joins her former Top Daw Entertainment for a soothing collaboration on “Luther,” while Dot bounces off a sample of Debbie Deb’s “When I Hear Music” for “Squabble Up,” which was initially teased as “Broccoli.”

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There were rumors Kendrick was working on an album in the wake of his feud with Drake, and the Compton native came through before 2024 expired. GNX serves as Lamar’s official follow-up to Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers in 2022, which topped the Billboard 200 with 295,000 total units earned in the first week.

K. Dot is rolling into 2025 with a new album, and he’ll have plenty of new music with him when he takes the Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show stage in February, when the big game hits New Orleans.

Even prior to the album’s arrival, Lamar notched seven Grammy Award nominations earlier this month — five of which came as a result of his “Not Like Us” anthem.

Stream GNX below.

This article first appeared on Billboard U.S.

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Ruth Jones McVeigh
Mariposa Folk Festival/Six String Nation

Ruth Jones McVeigh

FYI

Obituaries: Mariposa Folk Festival Co-Founder Ruth Jones McVeigh, Founding Grateful Dead Member Bob Weir

This week we also acknowledge the passing of Toronto musician and composer Bob Stevenson, influential New York filmmaker Amos Poe and English bassist Andrew Bodnar.

Ruth (Major) Jones McVeigh, an author, journalist and a writer, journalist, and cultural builder best known as co-founder of Canada's legendary and long-running Mariposa Folk Festival, died on Jan. 7, at age 99.

In its obituary, CBC identifies Jones McVeigh "a driving force behind the creation of the enduring, community-oriented annual musical gathering that's withstood location changes and financial challenges to become one of the longest-running folk festivals in North America.. Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan are among the scores of artists who attended the festival since its founding in 1961 and graced its stages."

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