Kendrick Lamar -: Somebody That I Used To Know -...

The rain in Compton didn't wash things away; it just made the concrete reflect the neon signs of the liquor stores Kendrick used to frequent.

The most literal reading comes in songs like “The Art of Peer Pressure,” where Kendrick recounts committing crimes with friends who have since faded into prison, death, or estrangement. He raps, “Me and my nigga, we was scheming again / That’s all we knew, wasn’t nothing to it.” Those friends are now “somebodies he used to know”—not because of a dramatic falling out, but because survival and fame created an unspoken distance. The chorus of Gotye’s song insists, “We’re just somebody that we used to know.” For Kendrick, the tragedy is that both parties still remember the bond, but the context has rotted it away. Kendrick Lamar - Somebody That I Used To Know -...