After surprise-releasing his new album GNX last week, Kendrick Lamar has revealed the music video for “squabble up,” the album’s biggest hit so far.
Directed by Calmatic, the “squabble up” video features many homages to Kendrick’s hometown of Compton and Southern California in general. There’s ample Crip-walking from Kendrick and the various characters that appear throughout the video. A giant Nate Dogg CD hangs from the ceiling. The video also includes a visual tribute to the cover art from Ice-T’s 1988 album Power among other references.
“Squabble up” is produced by Scott Bridgeway, Kendrick Lamar, Sounwave, Jack Antonoff, and Matthew “MTech” Bernard. It samples Debbie Deb’s 1983 track “When I Hear Music.” A snippet of the song first appeared in the music video for “Not Like Us,” Kendrick’s chart-topping, culture-saturating smash hit. Like “Not Like Us” before it, “squabble up” is projected to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 next week.
GNX has been already been touted as another triumph for Kendrick in a year full of them. NME called it “an easy contender for the rap album of 2024,” while Stereogum went a step farther, declaring it “the best album of 2024 and the greatest work of Kendrick Lamar’s career.” Variety hailed the album as “Kendrick Lamar at his most compelling.”
The album puts another exclamation point on a huge 2024 for Kendrick. “Like That,” the Future and Metro Boomin collab that found Kendrick taking his beef with Drake public, debuted at No. 1 in April. A few weeks later, so did “Not Like Us.” On Juneteenth, Kendrick celebrated his dominance—and the local scene that raised him—with his star-studded The Pop Out concert at The Forum in Inglewood, which streamed live on Prime Video.
