Key Takeaways:

• Kendrick Lamar started engaged on GNX instantly after releasing Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers in 2022.
• DJ Mustard and Sounwave pushed their manufacturing boundaries to align with Kendrick’s evolving sound.
• Jack Antonoff contributed to the ultimate 12-track album, which was chosen from practically 100 songs and contains viral hit like “tv off.”

Kendrick Lamar’s GNX album was a momentous event because of hits just like the SZA-assisted “luther,” and the wave of momentum sparked by “Not Like Us.” In a Variety article dated Wednesday (Dec. 3), collaborators DJ Mustard and Sounwave provided perception into Okay. Dot’s artistic course of behind the mission.

It seems that as quickly because the Compton rapper finalized his prior album, 2022’s Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, he started engaged on music that might ultimately flip into late 2024’s GNX. The Pulitzer Prize winner’s recording was so prolific that he reportedly ended up with round 100 songs to ultimately whittle down into an album.

Sounwave, who has been working with Lamar since 2009’s Kendrick Lamar EP, provided perception into the method of attending to the 12-song GNX. “The beginning of it was throwing paint on the wall,” Sounwave music/news/jack-antonoff-mustard-sounwave-production-kendrick-gnx-1236598023/”>advised the publication. “And it started to form this massive funky West groove that we love because [Kendrick and I are] from Compton. And in that, I started to realize the people who we should bring in to push it even further, like the Mustards, the Jacks … I was very fortunate to have these friends who are very talented to push it to the next level.”

Those associates embrace singer, songwriter and Taylor Swift collaborator Jack Antonoff, who first labored with King Kendrick on the music/rb-hip-hop/kendrick-lamar-jack-antonoff-drake-diss-song-616-in-la-1235673147/”>Drake diss document “6:16 in LA” in 2024. The different is DJ Mustard, who produced the anthemic “Not Like Us.” Both would ultimately have their fingerprints throughout GNX. Mustard, specifically, took no possibilities when it got here to creating positive his first hit collaboration with Lamar wasn’t his final.

“I knew that I couldn’t send Kendrick normal Mustard beats,” Mustard advised Variety. “I was sending [Kendrick] all types of s**t, anything that I thought sounded like something that I’ve never made before. That’s what I was going for, because Kendrick is different.”

It turned out that his second smash with Lamar, “tv off,” was truly the results of a mix of two separate instrumentals that Mustard had offered.

“I never asked Jack or Wave who put those two beats together, or Kendrick,” Mustard mentioned. “I care, but I don’t care. I was just like, that was great.”

That’s an understatement. The music went viral off the power of Lamar screaming “Mustard!” as a segue between its two-part instrumental, and in flip, acquired the eye of Heinz. The model then collaborated with DJ Mustard on his personal particular taste of the condiment.

As for Kendrick Lamar, he’s up for nine Grammy Awards in 2026, together with Album of the Year for GNX.