|
Written by Luke Oram
|
|
Sunday, 27 December 2009 14:47 |
 |
Cleveland geek rapper KID CUDI is being hailed as the saving tonic of the hip-hop world.
The truly refreshing thing about Cudi is that his long-awaited debut record is the result of careful timing and genre-spanning musical influences, rather than a rushed prototype of a newly-discovered hype.
'Man On The Moon: The End Of The Day' is the Grammy-nominated MC’s attempt at a neo-psychedelic concept-album; a sort of underground high-art piece. Where most ‘concept albums’ play out as an excuse to fill a record with tired filler and pointless diatribe-filled sketches, Cudi’s debut is well-crafted killer. |
It certainly helps that Cudi’s rise to fame garnered him some powerful friends, in the form of Kanye West - who played a hand in producing 'Man On The Moon: The End Of The Day'. West’s influence is noticeable in the fuzzed-out synth and beats in ‘Sky Might Fall’.
The record is split into five acts, centred around a version of Cudi’s rags-to-riches tale; rising up from the ghetto, drugs, heartbreak, et al. – the kind of shtick that could make for a dull album if it weren’t for Cudi’s brilliant ear for melody and instrumentation, which mashes up his varied loves of indie music, space-rock and underground hip-hop. Cudi enters some dark recesses on tracks like ‘Solo Dolo (Nightmare)’, a spooky joint with plucked strings and sinister beats, only to emerge with insistent fight songs like the brilliant ‘Heart Of A Lion (Kid Cudi Theme Music’). The great triumph of 'Man On The Moon' is in it’s eclectic musicality - in ‘Pursuit Of Happiness’ he brings in indie kids MGMT and Ratatat to make a piano and synth-driven slow-jam for him to reel over. Two tracks on the album have already gone supernova; the sparse and tripped-out ‘Day and Night’ and ‘Make Her Say’, a brilliant mash-up anthem featuring Kanye West and Common spitting all over a Lady Gaga sample.
'Man On The Moon: The End Of The Day' is much more than a great hip-hop album. It’s even more than the entrance of an underground pioneer - it’s a nod to a brilliant co-existence between genres; Cudi makes hip-hop sound fresh and interesting without bastardising a single thing. It’s no wonder all eyes are on Cudi for the new urban movement. |
