2020 #20, 2016 #5 (Kid Cudi) 2018 #8 (Kids Sea Ghosts)
Released in December last year, don’t make me come at you.
Kid Cudi, if you don’t love him your opinion and emotions are wrong and you should be extraordinarily ashamed. He could very well be argued to be one of the absolute most important musical artists of the past twenty years, so maybe that could be a reason you don’t love him. You don’t like ‘modern music’, right? Because you’re a cantankerous old fool? Well, the way it sounds is very much Kid Cudi’s fault, so boohoo him all you want. You do realise that everyone who ever loved you is now dead and you’re likely to follow them off this mortal coil sometime very soon? Cool. Just making sure you were aware how grossly old you are and how you are now impossible to love.
I can actually do a pretty good Kid Cudi impression. No, wait, come back! I promise it’s not racist!! Well, not that racist… It might be a little racist, but not that much! I can basically write a fictitious Kid Cudi song, with all the ‘Mmmmmm‘s and all the ‘Woah-uh-woah’s and all the ‘Yes yes yes yes yes’ followed by ‘No!’, or potentially the other way around. It’s fucking uncanny. But I don’t know anyone who would appreciate it. Sigh, I can’t wait to start my TikTok, it’s gonna be freaking lit bruh!!
The biggest complaint you might throw at Cudi’s seventh album is that he too at times seems to be performing similar impessions of himself. ‘Man on the Moon III’ might not be the most expansive and forward thinking of Cudi’s work, being very much connected to 2009’s original ‘Man on the Moon‘, Cudi’s debut album, but as a full and focused piece of artistic work it’s outstanding. The call backs and self-referencing is very much intentional, with his past success being one of the demons that Cudi spends the narrative fighting. And while the record is derivative, to a thematically sensible degree, it also sees the rapper making more strides into Cloud Rap and psychedelica, making the record far more experimental than it might appear on initial listens. It’s a fucking banger, and Scott Mescudi remains one of the most important musical voices today. Did you know Travis Scott was named after Kid Cudi?? That’s a cool little bit of trivia to keep you going over those difficult Christmas dinners with your family who still insist on deadnaming you and continually argue that removing statues of slave holders and colonists is “removing history”. Although, erm, I feel that Travis Scott’s brand might not be that hot right now…
Anyway, remember that post about his astonishing previous album being the fifth best of 2016? I spoke about how I had only just started volunteering at Manchester Refugee Support Network (MRSN) after my disability benefits were stopped. I also requested advice on how best to amputate myself in front of my local Job Centre in order to protest their treatment of me. I attempted to pass it off as a joke, as I’m always wary of people ‘getting worried’ and/or taking about ‘sectioning under the 1983 Mental Health Act’, but I was actually deadly (pun intended) serious. I left a form for people to suggest what the best way to do it would be. I would have wanted a clean cut, as I worried the sight of some hairy old woodsman hacking away at my bone might have turned the whole event into something rather horrific. I wanted one, good slice, maybe from one of those Japanese swordsman you see on YouTube. In a perfect world, a veteran Japanese warrior would have replied, we would have sliced the leg off in one gorgeous movement outside the Ashton Job Centre, people would applaud, the local news would cover it, I’d be discussed in parliament, I’d be put back on disability for my physical (and, fingers crossed, mental) impairment, then I could really concentrate on that book I’ve been planning! Not a single person answered my call though, so my best laid plan never materialised.
It’s because Cudi’s music and lyrics awaken these introspections, he manages to draw out such mediations on yourself and on your situation – your worth – in life. Alright, so maybe not quite to the same degree – although if people start removing body parts in front of their local JCP centre I’m definitely claiming that as my thing – but few artists have the same ability he does, and fewer still in the genre he operates within.
How am I doing? Better. They now pay me to doss around at MRSN, and I’ve no passed all the required exams to be a registered Level 2 advisor in both Immigration and Asylum & Protection. Do I still want to cut off one of my legs in front of the Job Centre? Nah, not really bothered with them any more, not been on benefits for a couple of years now. The Home Office though?? Oh yeah, that’s where I’m going to be decapitating myself in front of next! And this blog has way more readers now, so you’ll all come to watch me do that, yeah?
Awesome!
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