And it might just be the next-generation rap record of the year.
This is a grungy, filthy record full of angels and demons, violently at odds with mainstream US R&B chart pap. And ‘ The Legend Of Mr Rager’ is where that promise is made good. Where modern rap has effortlessly adopted cinematic, pop, soul and hard rock elements, Cudi looked like he might be the first to successfully leap the indie/rap divide (Lethal Bizzle showing up on a Kaiser Chiefs song doesn’t count) and produce hip-hop with the adventurous, lo-fi attitude of an Animal Collective or Foals. He featured on ‘ The Blueprint 3’ and perhaps learnt a trick or two about churning out ‘franchise albums’ from the master of the form: cut ’em quick, stack ’em high and slap on the guest stars like fake tan on a WAG.īut his collaborations with MGMT and Ratatat on his debut hinted that Cudi might be the first big-selling rap act of the new millennium to adopt a truly alternative mindset. Cudi fitted the profile perfectly: he’s a protégé of Kanye West who racked up a US Top Five debut album with ‘ Man On The Moon: The End Of Day’ last year. Ah, how easy it would’ve been to dismiss ‘ Man On The Moon II’ as another cobbled-together plot-staller of a rap album ‘trilogy’ – the latest clichéd hip-hop formula for guaranteed repeat sales, next best to getting shot. Rager nods, gestures for us to follow him and hacks away into a thick undergrowth of MIA afrobeats and voodoo voices, off to map out hip-pop’s darkest and most perilous unexplored terrain.Īnd Cudi, his ever-faithful cartographer, follows on devotedly. “ Mr Rager, tell me some of your stories,” Kid Cudi asks this mysterious anti-hero on the track that bears his name “ I’m off on an adventure,” comes the warped, enigmatic reply. And the only way to do that is to connect with other like-minded people on the same mission.He’s seven foot tall, Mr Rager, or that’s how you picture him: an imposing figure in jungle explorer’s suit and backpack. As he told Apple Music about his choice of collaborators, “We need to feel the music all around us, we need to swim in it.
For Cudi, creation is ultimately about unlocking access to a higher power. Grappling candidly with the wages of fame, the duo’s track “Reborn,” with a chorus movingly sung by Cudi, is a timeless anthem to self-love and self-improvement. In 2018, Cudi and West teamed up as KIDS SEE GHOSTS.
Over the years, Cudi’s vision has become more expansive, yielding multi-part album series, deep dives into the life of the mind (2016’s Passion, Pain & Demon Slayin’, released after a public admission of anxiety and depression), and boundary-breaking side projects like WZRD, his alt-rock partnership with longtime producer Dot Da Genius. Music label, Cudi co-wrote several tracks on his label head’s 808s & Heartbreak, further moulding the future of hip-hop in his own introspective image. His 2008 breakout hit, “Day ‘n’ Nite,” neatly encompassed his contradictions: What sounds like a bouncy party cut captured the kind of melancholy candour that would come to define the next decade in hip-hop. After he was expelled from high school, he moved to New York with dreams of becoming a successful rapper. The Cleveland native-born Scott Ramon Seguro Mescudi in 1984-came up fuelled by the trials he'd faced early on.
An old soul with a livewire mind, Kid Cudi is hip-hop’s patron saint of misfits and outsiders.