Gloria

Gloria — Kendrick Lamar & SZA Close 2024 With a Statement

The final weeks of 2024 found Kendrick Lamar at a different altitude than he had occupied at the year's beginning. His sustained public conflict with Drake, conducted primarily through diss tracks, had produced Not Like Us, a song that became a genuine cultural phenomenon well beyond hip-hop circles. By December, Lamar was preparing to perform at the Super Bowl LIX halftime show and GNX, his new album, was receiving critical attention as one of the year's major releases. Gloria, his collaboration with SZA on that album, became one of the tracks to break through to chart visibility at the year's end.

The GNX Album and Its Context

Kendrick Lamar's output across 2024 was dominated by the Drake conflict for much of the year, which made GNX, arriving in November, something of a pivot: a full album statement that moved past the battle rap moment into territory that was more personal, reflective, and sonically exploratory. The album arrived without traditional pre-release promotion, dropping as a surprise, which generated immediate streaming activity concentrated among Lamar's highly engaged core audience. Gloria represented one of the album's most commercially accessible moments, partly because it featured SZA at the height of her own considerable commercial momentum.

The SZA Collaboration

By late 2024, SZA had spent two years at the center of R&B's critical and commercial conversation. Her album SOS had been one of 2023's biggest records, and her collaborations with artists across genre lines had become a reliable indicator of cultural currency. Her presence on Gloria brought a vocal warmth and melodic sensibility that balanced the more angular aspects of Lamar's lyrical approach. The combination of their two audiences contributed directly to the song's chart performance in early December.

Debuting at Number 27

Gloria entered the Billboard Hot 100 on December 7, 2024, at number 27, its peak position for the four-week chart run. The song spent four weeks on the chart, descending from that opening position through the rest of December as the holiday season reshaped the chart landscape. A debut-week peak for a Kendrick Lamar album track reflects the streaming patterns of his audience: concentrated, loyal, and capable of generating significant first-week numbers without requiring radio support to reach chart-qualifying territory.

A Year Closing at Its Peak

The timing of Gloria's chart run placed it squarely in the context of Lamar's extraordinary 2024. The Super Bowl announcement had been made, Not Like Us had already become one of the year's most discussed songs, and GNX was being absorbed by critics and fans simultaneously. Gloria arrived in that charged atmosphere and, in a quieter register than the diss track saga, demonstrated that Lamar's range extended well beyond competitive rap.

Press Play at Year's End

For a song that charted in the final month of a year dense with Kendrick Lamar news, Gloria rewards attention precisely because it exists outside all that noise. Put it on and hear what Lamar sounds like when he's building something lasting rather than winning an argument.

“Gloria” — Kendrick Lamar & SZA's singular moment on the 2020s charts.