Kid Cudi

Rapper

• Born: January 30, 1984
• Place of Birth: Cleveland, Ohio

Contribution: Kid Cudi is an American rapper, record producer, and actor. His 2010 singles “Day ‘n’ Nite” and “Make Her Say” were together nominated for three Grammy Awards, and he and a number of other artists shared a Grammy for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for Kanye West’s 2010 single “All of the Lights.” Long associated with West and his GOOD Music label, he has launched his own labels as well, and collaborated with some of the top artists in the music business.

Background

Kid Cudi was born Scott Ramon Seguro Mescudi in 1984, the youngest of four in a working-class family in suburban Cleveland, Ohio. His father was a Mexican American Indian who supported the family as a housepainter, while his mother was a middle school choir teacher.

Kid Cudi's father died of cancer in 1995, a startling loss from which he later claimed he never fully recovered. His profound grief left him frequently plagued by nightmares throughout his childhood, an experience that, coupled with the economic hardship of his single-parent family, would later play a prominent role in his music.

Kid Cudi began rapping at age twelve with neighborhood friends, influenced by rappers such as Lil Wayne. As he and his group of friends matured, many lost interest in music, but it remained young Kid Cudi's passion. His fondness for rap music compelled him to enter local open mike and freestyle rap competitions in his teenage years.

Kid Cudi attended Solon High School in southeastern Cleveland, earning a GED in 2002, though his early years were often contentious. At sixteen he was charged with assault after attending a fight between schoolmates. A year later he was arrested for disorderly conduct for being intoxicated at a local high school football game.

After high school Kid Cudi enrolled in the film program at the University of Toledo, where he made his first self-recordings between courses. He dropped out after one year, considering a career in the US Navy (his father was a veteran of World War II), but he was not accepted because of his criminal record.

In 2004 Kid Cudi decided to move to New York City to pursue music after his father’s brother—an uncle he had never met—offered to give him a place to stay temporarily. He made the trip with $500 saved from working at a Cleveland-area restaurant and a homemade demo tape under his stage name, Kid Cudi—a play on his surname.

Career

By 2006 Kid Cudi had ensconced himself in Brooklyn’s underground rap scene. In 2008 he released an independent CD of original material, in collaboration with a Brooklyn-area clothing line, titled A Kid Called Cudi. His frequent local club performances also drew the attention of Brooklyn-based independent record label Fool’s Gold Records, on which the rapper released his first successful single, “Day ‘n’ Nite,” in 2008.

Kid Cudi’s work ultimately caught the attention of hip-hop producer Kanye West, who asked the young artist to contribute to tracks that would become an integral part of Jay-Z’s 2009 album The Blueprint 3. The success of the experience earned Kid Cudi an appearance on West’s 2008 record 808s & Heartbreak, which would make him one of hip-hop’s brightest rising stars.

Kid Cudi’s debut solo album, Man on the Moon: The End of Day, was released via West’s GOOD Music production company in 2009. The album received favorable reviews throughout the hip-hop world for its eccentric melodies and forays into electronica. Kid Cudi supported the album with a spate of appearances on late-night television talk shows.

The album’s second single, “Make Her Say,” featuring samples of Lady Gaga and performances by West and Common, was nominated for a Grammy Award for best rap performance by a duo or group in 2010. Also that year, “Day ‘n’ Nite” received a Grammy nomination for best rap solo performance and best rap song.

Kid Cudi's sophomore effort was 2010’s Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager, a conceptual hip-hop record structured as a five-act show that explored aspects of funk and psychedelic rock. Critics heralded the album as exciting and ambitious, and it found popularity among audiences as well, topping the rap albums chart.

Kid Cudi won a Grammy for his 2012 collaboration with his mentor, West, on the latter’s single “All of the Lights,” which featured an all-star cast of contemporary music stars, including Rihanna, Drake, John Legend, and Alicia Keys. Also in 2012, Kid Cudi launched the side project WZRD, a rock band he formed with his frequent collaborator Dot da Genius. They released one self-titled album that peaked at number three on the Billboard 200 chart.

Critics were less kind to Kid Cudi’s 2013 release Indicud. For example, NME panned the release as the worst in his catalog, stating it was “self-indulgent” and “meandering.” Nonetheless, the album debuted at number two on the album charts and sold well.

Around this time, Kid Cudi parted amicably from West's GOOD Music and launched his own Wicked Awesome Records label, on which he released his next album, Satellite Flight: The Journey to Mother Moon, in 2014. He followed this the next year with Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven, which like WZRD was a drastic stylistic departure into alternative rock, though this one performed poorly. Passion, Pain & Demon Slayin' (2016) was a return to form that was applauded by hip-hop fans and critics alike.

In 2018, Kid Cudi got back together with West to form the hip-hop duo Kids See Ghosts, which released a well-received self-titled album, named by a number of outlets as the best album of 2018. His next big year for his music came in 2020, when he released both his solo album Man on the Moon III: The Chosen as well as the collaborative single "The Scotts," which he recorded alongside Travis Scott. While "The Scotts" proved especially popular and reached the top position on the Billboard Hot 100 amid reports that he was working with Scott on a full-length project, his third installment of the Man on the Moon album series charted the highest on the Billboard 200 at number two. In November of that year, he announced that he had cofounded the production company Mad Solar. He released the album Entergalactic in 2022 and Insano and Insano (Nitro Mega) in 2024, all on the Wicked Awesome label.

Around 2010, Kid Cudi also moved into acting, with a number of small roles in film and television. Notably, he was in the main cast of How to Make It in America (2010–11), an HBO comedy-drama in which he played a friend of the two main characters, young entrepreneurs trying to make it in New York's fashion industry. He also appeared in episodes of The Cleveland Show and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and was the cohost and bandleader for the 2015 season of the IFC comedy show Comedy Bang! Bang! In addition to joining the cast of the HBO series Westworld for four episodes of its third season in 2020, he made an appearance as himself in the sequel Bill & Ted Face the Music and played a character on the new HBO limited series We Are Who We Are. The following year saw him in the role of DJ Chello in the Netflix sci-fi dramedy Don't Look Up. He had numerous roles on the large and small screens in the 2020s, including House Party (2023), Trolls Band Together (voice, 2023), and the miniseries Knuckles (2024).

Personal Life

Kid Cudi has a daughter who was born in 2010.

Impact

Kid Cudi has drawn on tremendous personal self-sacrifice and grief to pen the narratives that have established him as one of hip-hop’s premier artists. Though his penchant for experimentation makes him one of the genre’s most unpredictable artists, it has also made him one of the most exciting.

Kid Cudi’s penchant for mixing hip-hop, rock, and dance music has propelled him to the forefront of the rap genre, and he has become an unofficial spokesperson for its continual harmonic and rhythmic evolution.

Bibliography

Cole, Matthew. Rev. of Man on the Moon II—The Legend of Mr. Rager, by Kid Cudi. Slant Magazine. Slant, 9 Nov. 2010. Web. 4 Sept. 2013.

Gee, Andre. "Kid Cudi Is ‘Reborn’ after Defeating His Demons—and the Rest of Hip-Hop Can Learn from It." Uproxx, 26 July 2018, uproxx.com/music/kid-cudi-depression-legacy-mental-illness-hip-hop/. Accessed 3 Jan. 2020.

Gross, Joe. Rev. of Indicud, by Kid Cudi. Rolling Stone 9 May 2013: 72. Print.

Hoard, Christian. “Kid Cudi: Hip-Hop’s Sensitive Soul.” Rolling Stone 17 Sept. 2009: 40. Print.

Kid Cudi. “Complex’s Kid Cudi Cover Story: The Uncut Interview Outtakes.” Interview by Joe La Puma. Complex Music. Complex Media, 15 Aug. 2009. Web. 4 Sept. 2013.

"Kid Cudi." Discogs, 2024, www.discogs.com/artist/1093094-Kid-Cudi. Accessed 19 Sept. 2024.

"Kid Cudi." IMDb, 2024, www.imdb.com/name/nm3264596/?ref‗=nmbio‗ov. Accessed 19 Sept. 2024.

Klinkenberg, Brendan. "Kid Cudi Wants You to Know He's Happy Now." Esquire, 29 Sept. 2020, www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a34196326/kid-cudi-we-are-who-we-are-hbo-interview-2020/. Accessed 21 Dec. 2021.

Soeder, John. “Before He Became the Most Buzzed-About Rookie in the Music Business, Kid Cudi Was a Kid from Cleveland with Big Dreams.” Plain Dealer [Cleveland, OH]. Northeast Ohio Media Group, 27 June 2009. Web. 5 Sept. 2013.