Drawing to Kendrick Lamar- GNX

Kendrick just dropped an album—because, of course, he does whatever he wants, whenever he wants. This one is called GNX. I listened to it while I was in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada on a semi-vacation.

For this episode of Drawing To, my approach was to focus on visual language and the ideas that emerged while I listened, rather than diving into whether I like or dislike the music. I drew everything on my iPad Pro using Procreate.

TRACK 1: wacced out murals

GNX evoked the image of a supernatural black car made by a fictional company—a machine driven by a new loa.

Somewhere around TRACK 2 (Squabble up), This album reminded me of Jet Force Gemini, a beautifully strange video game where kids in blue cyber outfits fight insectoid aliens. Anyone else remember that? While we’re on the subject, you should watch Hip-Hop RPG.

TRACK 6: reincarnated

If GNX were a song you’d hear while being reincarnated, you’d probably come back as some kind of blade-armed assassin straight out of Cyberpunk 2077 (and this was the second Cyberpunk reference I came up with while drawing to this).

TRACK 9- peekaboo

I had a problem here with one particular line that I believe was regaled to us by a Mr. AzChike—a line about putting fingers in anuses. It’s absurd, and honestly, I’m thinking: why not make the whole song about that? How can I not think about this while listening to the rest of the album?

TRACK 10 heart pt. 6

This is for sure the album’s nucleus—the emotional core. It’ll take a few more listens for me to understand what is going on here and is being described.

This album is pretty much a dps barrage, like something Sabin or Zell from Final Fantasy would do during a battle. I created an RPG battle in this using RPG Maker MV, which you’ll learn more about as I start to integrate it more into other videos.

Let me know what GNX inspires in you. Until next time, keep creating.

This is the video version of this writing.