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

Kendrick Lamar has spent a decade singing that exact ache over jazz beats and funk basslines. To hear him sing it over those four iconic xylophone notes? That wouldn't just be a cover.

But look closer. Beneath the surface, this is a match made in purgatory. Here is why Kendrick Lamar is the only artist alive who could truly own that song—and what it would sound like. Gotye’s original (featuring Kimbra) is a conversation between two people who can no longer see each other clearly. The narrator feels erased; the response feels gaslit. It’s about the civil war of a breakup where nobody wins. Kendrick Lamar - Somebody That I Used To Know -...

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. Kendrick Lamar has spent a decade singing that

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. But look closer

That would be a funeral for a former self. What do you think? Could Kendrick pull off the melancholy of Gotye, or is this a bridge too far? Drop your dream mashup in the comments.

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.”