STACK #244 February 2025

MUSIC FEATURE

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FROM A BUICK 6 S o what’s the story Kendrick Lamar motors back into the charts with his cracking new album. He was named after Eddie Kendricks, singer in legendary Motown group The Temptations. He first released music under the stage name K.Dot. The legendary rapper Dr. Dre was his mentor. He was the first rap artist to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. He has an alter ego called “Kung Fu Kenny”, which he introduced on his album DAMN . His long-term partner is his high school sweetheart, Whitney Alford.

CHART FACT

Kendrick Lamar has had three number one albums in Australia. Five songs from GNX occupied the top five spots on the US charts. Lamar was just the fourth artist to achieve this feat, following The Beatles, Drake, and Taylor Swift.

behind the title of Kendrick Lamar’s sixth studio album GNX ? Well, the superstar rapper was born in 1987. His dad brought him home from hospital in a car that was made that year: a Buick Grand National Experimental – GNX. Lamar bought the same model last year.

Here are seven other things you might not know about Kendrick Lamar:

He has won 17 Grammys. Only two rappers – Jay-Z and Kanye West – have won more. He was nominated for ‘Best New Artist’ in 2014, but the trophy went to Macklemore & Ryan Lewis.

Jeff Jenkins

GNX by Kendrick Lamar is out Feb 7 via Interscope

Kendrick Lamar

Kendrick Lamar and Drake were collaborators in the early 2010s, but their feud erupted last year, with both artists claiming they were the king of hip-hop. Responding to Drake’s First Person Shooter , on which J. Cole suggested that he, Drake, and Lamar were the “Big Three”, Lamar declared: “It’s just big me.”

THE NAME GAME

THE END OF THE WEEKND?

So why does Abel Tesfaye

call himself The Weeknd? Well, he moved out of home one weekend when he was 17. “I hated my name at the time, so I tried it as a stage name,”

Who knows what Tomorrow will bring forThe Weeknd?

A bel Tesfaye has indicated that his new album, Hurry Up Tomorrow , might be his last as The Weeknd. But don’t panic – he’s got more music inside him. In an interview with American fashion magazine W , he said the record was probably his “last

I can say. I’ll still make music, maybe as Abel, maybe as The Weeknd. But I still want to kill The Weeknd. And I will. Eventually. “I’m definitely trying to shed that skin and be reborn.” The Canadian superstar says Hurry Up

he explains. “It sounded cool. And I

Hurry Up Tomorrow by The Weeknd is out now via Universal

took out the ‘e’ because there was already a Canadian band

Tomorrow is the final part of a trilogy that started with 2020’s After Hours and 2022’s Dawn FM . Jeff Jenkins

hurrah” as The Weeknd. “This is something that I have to do. As The Weeknd, I’ve said everything

named The Weekend.”

The Weeknd

The Weeknd’s first album, 2013’s Kiss Land , peaked at number 30 in Australia. His four subsequent studio albums have all topped the charts.

ON THE BIG SCREEN You’ve heard the album. Now get ready for the movie. Hurry Up Tomorrow is set to hit cinemas on May 16. Tesfaye will make his big screen debut in the psychological thriller, starring alongside Jenna Ortega, Barry Keoghan, and Gabby Barrett.

CHART FACT

40 FEBRUARY 2025

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