Seen a light-skinned nigga with his brains blown out
At the same burger stand where --- hang out
Now this is not a tape recorder saying that he did it
But ever since that day, I was lookin at him different

from Kendrick Lamar (Ft. MC Eiht) – M.A.A.d City Lyrics on Rap Genius

Kendrick saw a dead body at the same place where someone he knew (that was likely gang-affiliated) would regularly hang out. He bleeps out this person/gang’s name out in order to keep their identity confidential.

The bleeped out name also leads into the next line, in which Kendrick claims that while there is no evidence to who committed the murder, he suspects it was the person mentioned in the last line, leading him to always see him as a murderer.

The recording on a tape recorder would be him telling police what he witnessed when being interviewed, but he isn’t a snitch so he didn’t say anything.

It’s possible that Kendrick is talking about his uncle’s dead body

The “burger stand” that he is talking about is most likely Louis Burgers, which we’ve already learned about in “P&P” and more recently in “Money Trees”. This is where his Uncle Tony was murdered. .

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