Yesterday, in the span of an aural hour, self-proclaimed “man on the moon” Kid Cudi took one small step for himself and one giant leap for music.
With his album, “Man on the Moon: End of Day,” the artist born as Scott Mescudi proves himself to be a talent unrivaled in contemporary hip-hop, a revolutionary in the same league as his mentor Kanye West. However, the Kid Cudi of today, of heart-shaking voice, insight and emotional masterpiece, wouldn’t exist if not for an ample amount of struggle.
A Cleveland homegrown, Mescudi’s lost his father to cancer at age 11 and was raised by his mother — an influence he mentions repeatedly on the album (“At the end of the day / My mom always told me / Don’t let no one break me”). Dropping out of college after one year in 2004, the artist chased his dreams to the city that never sleeps, residing with his uncle, who passed shortly thereafter. Not until 2008, with the release of his seminal mixtape “A Kid Named Cudi” and the popularity of the single “Day n’ Night” (recorded in 2006) could he rest his head, all the while working overtime to purchase beats and studio time, to sell his new sound to an unresponsive public.
This story provides a rich emotional foundation for his music, music that even Dewey Decimal would have trouble classifying. His sound combines hip-hop, R&B, soul, jazz and electro, and, in the end, stands as something flawlessly brand new — a modern beacon on the hill, providing other rappers with opportunity for safe passage to a future of artistic freedom and creativity, a future free of brainless hooks and tired gangsta’ mantras. Singing more than rapping (and at times combining the two), his voice, full of rasp and depth, carries listeners into a world all his own, a world of both daydreams and night terrors, optimism and doom. During the course of “Man on the Moon,” Mr. Solo Dolo (another of Mescudi’s monikers) triumphs a journey into a new frontier.
Commercially successful singles “Day n’ Night” and “Make Her Say” seem fascinatingly out of place on the disc; they resound as formulated hits within the company of experiments. Kid Cudi’s third single, “Pursuit of Happiness” better represents the ambition that characterizes the album, recruiting electro acts MGMT and Ratatat to compliment the artist’s mellow, almost methodical flow with a wonder wall of synths and keys. The track, however, only scratches at the surface of the fresh, anti-establishment hip-hop that defines songs like “Alive” (also featuring Ratatat) and “Sky Might Fall.”
“Man on the Moon: End of Day,” ambitious in its eccentricity yet flawless in its appeal, cannot be heralded as anything less that groundbreaking. Buy it; listen to it; vibe to it; whatever. It will change your life as you know it.
