Nas Praises Kendrick Lamar’s ‘GNX’: ‘Keeping the Essence of This Sh-t Alive’

After Kendrick Lamar commanded attention with the surprise release of his sixth album GNX on Nov. 22, revered rapper Nas posted the album cover on his Instagram with a loving note to Lamar. “Always inspired by my brother KL,” he wrote. “Keeping the essence of this shit alive and at the forefront. Salute King!”

On the album, Lamar shines a light on Nas’ support for his career and influence on it. “Won the Super Bowl and Nas the only one congratulate me,” Kendrick raps on the intense opener “Wacced Out Murals.” In September, ​​the NFL, Roc Nation, Apple Music, and Lamar himself revealed that the Compton rapper would headline the Super Bowl Halftime Show in New Orleans in February. That announcement was met with dismay by some, particularly New Orleanian Lil Wayne, who said missing the opportunity “broke me, and I’m just trying to put me back together.” (Wayne also seemed to respond to “Wacced Out Murals,” where Lamar also calls out the YMCMB rapper by name: “I just be chillin & dey still kome 4 my head. Let’s not take kindness for weakness. Let this giant sleep. I beg u all,” he wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “No one really wants destruction, not even me but I shall destroy if disturbed. On me. Love.”

Elsewhere on GNX, Lamar seemed to channel Nas’ Stillmatic hit “One Mic” in the song “Man at the Garden.” Then, in her feature on “Gloria” with Lamar, SZA references the Queens rapper’s “I Gave You Power” from It Was Written.

Lamar and Nas have been longtime admirers of one another. In 2014, Lamar said that Nas’ Illmatic paved a way for him as a writer and that being compared to him “makes me a little more confident in what I’m doing.” That year, Nas also sang Lamar’s praises in an interview with Complex. “I think he got it. I know he got it,” he said in anticipation of Lamar’s good kid m.A.A.d city follow-up. “There’s no way he can mess it up because the love he has from the game is so large that he can almost mumble on the record and it’s going to be in rhythm and it’s going to be next level.”

Last month, Nas executive produced Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Warriors concept album. Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl Halftime Show will take place on Feb. 9, 2025.