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

The most direct answer to your search is the title track from Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers. Here, Kendrick addresses family members and friends he has had to leave behind.

So, the next time you open Spotify or YouTube Music and type in "Kendrick Lamar - Somebody That I Used to Know," you will likely find nothing official. You will be met with silence, a few reaction videos, and a fan-edit that sounds like it was recorded in a drainpipe.

But do not be disappointed. The absence of the track is the point.

Kendrick Lamar’s greatest trick is making you search for a version of himself that no longer exists. He killed K. Dot. He buried the good kid in a m.A.A.d city. The man holding the Pulitzer is not the boy who wrote Section.80.

And in that sense, every single Kendrick Lamar song is a remix of "Somebody That I Used to Know." Because the only person he has truly, violently, and irrevocably cut off... is the person he used to be.

Listen closely. You can still hear him knocking. Kendrick Lamar - Somebody That I Used To Know -...

Title: The Alchemist of Angst: Deconstructing Kendrick Lamar’s Performance of "Somebody That I Used To Know"

Abstract

This paper explores the artistic significance of Kendrick Lamar’s cover of Gotye’s "Somebody That I Used To Know," specifically focusing on his 2013 performance for BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge. While the original track by Gotye is defined by its minimalist detachment and indie-pop aesthetic, Lamar’s interpretation transforms the song into a vessel for aggressive introspection and technical lyrical deconstruction. By analyzing the shifting cadences, the insertion of original verses, and the tonal modulation of the chorus, this paper argues that Lamar reclaims the narrative of the song from one of passive resignation to active confrontation, marking a pivotal moment in his good kid, m.A.A.d city era where he solidified his status as a premier interpreter of the human condition.

At first glance, Gotye’s 2011 minimalist breakup anthem and Kendrick Lamar’s dense, jazz-influenced rap epics live in different genres. But lyrically, both explore a universal wound: the painful realization that someone you loved has become a stranger.

In Gotye’s 2011 hit “Somebody That I Used to Know,” the central anguish comes from waking up to find that a once-intimate connection has dissolved into cold indifference. The lyric—“You didn’t have to stoop so low / Have your friends collect your records and then change your number”—captures the paradox of memory: we remember someone perfectly, yet they no longer exist in the present. If we apply that lens to Kendrick Lamar’s discography, a different but equally haunting picture emerges. Kendrick’s music is less about romantic estrangement and more about the fractures between his past and present selves, between fame and poverty, and between the man he is and the city that raised him. In that sense, Kendrick Lamar has spent his career singing about people he used to know—including himself. The most direct answer to your search is

The Estranged Self: “u” and “i”

On To Pimp a Butterfly, Kendrick stages a raw conversation between his current, successful self and his depressed, guilt-ridden self. In “u,” he weeps in a hotel room, drowning in survivor’s guilt over a friend who died and a cousin he couldn’t save. The voice he addresses is his own: “Loving you is complicated.” By “i,” he flips to defiant self-love, but the tension remains. He has become somebody he used to know—the hopeful kid from Compton, the hungry rapper before the Pulitzer Prize. The gap between those versions of himself is as painful as any breakup.

The City as a Lost Lover: “good kid, m.A.A.d city”

Kendrick’s major-label debut is a concept album about losing innocence. The “somebody” he used to know is not a person but a version of his environment—before the peer pressure, before the van carrying Sherane’s cousins, before the drive-by. The album’s skits and voicemails from his mother ground the story in intimacy. By the end, when he raps “I pray my dick get big as the Eiffel Tower / So I can fuck the world for 72 hours,” the boy who just wanted a working stereo and a girl’s affection is gone. In his place is a scarred storyteller. Compton, too, becomes somebody he used to know: still beloved, still violent, but viewed from a tour bus rather than a back seat.

Friends, Enemies, and Ghosts: “The Art of Peer Pressure” So, the next time you open Spotify or

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.

Conclusion: The Familiar Stranger

Kendrick Lamar has never covered Gotye, but their shared theme—the sorrow of recognition without reconciliation—runs through Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers. When he confronts his uncle for molesting him as a child on “Mother I Sober,” or when he addresses transphobia in “Auntie Diaries,” he is speaking to people he used to know: not as insults, but as acknowledgments of change. To write a song called “Somebody That I Used to Know” in Kendrick’s voice would not be a bitter kiss-off. It would be a quiet, bruised admission that growing up means accumulating ghosts—of places, of friends, of who you swore you would never become. And the hardest part is that you still recognize them in the mirror.

Based on the title you provided, you are likely looking for the real song title and the artist who made the cover or remix famous in that style, or you might be thinking of the viral "mashup" trend.

Here is the breakdown of that track and the "proper feature" info:

The Song: "Somebody That I Used to Know" The Artist: Gotye (feat. Kimbra) Kendrick Lamar's Version: "P&V (Problems & Views)"