Either way, Kendrick Lamar is back with a new album ... perhaps most consequentially, still annoyed by Drake, the superstar rapper he feuded with in song earlier this year. Never had a rap beef been more breathlessly hyped, but Lamar made the most of ...

Kendrick Lamar surprised fans by releasing a new album, “GNX,” Friday afternoon with no advance notice, the latest in a successful year for the rapper marked by his dramatic beef with Drake—which many say Lamar won—and his smash diss track “Not Like Us,

Midway through his snarling Drake diss, “Not Like Us,” Kendrick Lamar issued a succinct, but forceful personal mandate: “Sometimes you gotta pop out and show n—as.” It was both a plan of action and a self-fulfilling mandate. Since then ...