Kendrick Lamar starts his exhilarating new album by complaining that someone vandalized a mural depicting his face — a mural depicting his face in triplicate, in fact — on the side of a Honduran restaurant in his Compton hometown.

GNX” is easily the most disciplined and direct music Kendrick Lamar has ever made, and if you really let yourself feel it, it might also be his most profound.

After “Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers,” Lamar’s strong yet challenging sixth studio album, it was a re-coronation for ... and the athleticism of a decathlete, “GNX” is Kendrick Lamar at his most compelling — a mosaic that indisputably ...