CHILISIN GROUP
But the exercise matters because it reveals a truth about both artists: It’s about the horror of looking at a face you once kissed, or a city you once repped, or a version of yourself you once loved—and feeling absolutely nothing except a dull, metallic ache.
We live in an era of the “mashup” and the “cover,” but some artistic collisions exist only in our collective imagination. One such phantom track that refuses to leave my brain is this: Kendrick Lamar performing a rendition of Gotye’s 2011 indie-pop masterpiece, “Somebody That I Used to Know.” Kendrick Lamar - Somebody That I Used To Know -...
At first glance, the pairing seems absurd. Gotye’s track is a minimalist, xylophone-plucked anthem of post-breakup ambiguity, drenched in Australian art-pop melancholy. Kendrick Lamar is the Pulitzer-winning bard of Compton’s concrete jungles, a rapper whose vocabulary slices through ego and trauma. But the exercise matters because it reveals a
In the Kendrick version, this verse wouldn't be a female singer. It would be —perhaps sampled from a voicemail left by a real person in his past, or voiced by SZA in her most wounded, accusatory register. Gotye’s track is a minimalist, xylophone-plucked anthem of
This is the genius of Kendrick. He is the only rapper who would lose the argument in the middle of his own song. He would leave the “somebody” with the final word, forcing us to realize: Maybe Kendrick was the toxic one. Of course, this cover will never happen. Gotye is famously protective of the song, and Kendrick is allergic to nostalgia-bait covers. He doesn't look back; he excavates.
He wouldn't sing about a romantic partner. He would sing about Whitney (his fiancée), or Top Dawg (his former label head), or even the old Kendrick —the “Compton Humble” persona he killed on To Pimp a Butterfly . “I saw you walkin' down the street at the Grammy party / You looked right through me like I was still writin' in the dark / You said ‘K. Dot, you sold your soul for the industry arc.’ / Nah, baby. I just grew up. You stayed in the park.” The chorus would hit differently. Instead of a whimper, it would be a growl . Kendrick doesn't do passive resentment. He does biblical fury. “Now you're just somebody that I used to know... / But you forget the blood we bled to build that road / You took the picture frame, but left the crucifix / Now I'm standin' at the altar with a loaded paradox.” The Kimbra Verse: A Necessary Counterpoint In the original, Kimbra’s bridge is the killer: “You say that we are nothing but you still hold my hand.”
