when you’re leading the pack of hip hop’s next generation, your song remixed and bumped in clubs across the country for going on two years now and have high profile appearances on the albums of hip hop’s royalty (see jay-z and kanye west), ‘highly anticipated’ is an understatement in regards to your debut album.

such are the challenges and high expectations facing kid cudi, who virtually unknown when affiliating himself to the fools gold label, rose to prominence with but a single mixtape to his name. now signed to the infamous GOOD music, all eyes turn to cudi to not only make a name for himself with his unique approach to music, but also as the future of hip hop in its ever evolving form.

review after the jump.

– sunbear

Artist: Kid Cudi
Album: Man on the Moon: The End of Day
Record Label: G.O.O.D. Music
Release Date: September 15, 2009

What made “Day n Nite” such a groundbreaking single for young Scott Mescudi wasn’t his flow, his backpack appeal or even the song’s schizophrenic Crookers remix, which drove it far from its original intention: it was the song’s minimalist style: those drowsy bleeps that echoed themselves into oblivion, the vocal effect sounding as if Cudi himself was being sucked into a black hole, those apocalyptic synths that communicated no particular significance other than to add to the song’s ominous tone. in fact, without its bouncy remixed brethren, the original Cudi sound was an dismal and bleak affair – one that revealed more about the developing emcee than intended.

Such wasn’t the way for a rapper to be, pondering his desolation, so insular in his thoughts that his only escape came at night in a cloud of blunt smoke. In a game where machismo wins, such introspection and vulnerability would have seemed weak to the common hubristic emcee.

And then there was 808s.

That’s not to say that Kid Cudi is following in the direct footsteps of his forefather. He does have a unique sound all his own – a natural soulful rasp to his singing voice that strays from the perfection of autotune; lyrical themes that are far more organic and ingrained than that of Mr. West’s one-off breakup record. No, this was more a situation where the floodgates had been opened by such a powerhouse that it was now safe for such a fledgling artist to tread such intimate territory. The similarities are unmistakable, the subject matter and space-age sound sometimes more clone than companion, but still, imitation is the highest form of flattery (see: The Love Below and Futuresex/Lovesounds.)

Though the album is divided into separate acts with Common providing naught more than to use his distinct phone sex operator voice for some vague narration, Cudi’s somber and melancholy tone is a constant, even on the more commercially viable songs, excluding of course “Make Her Say”, an add-on so horrendous and deservedly dismissed as a low-brow gimmick so as to appeal to the lowest common denominator. “In My Dreams” is more a crawl than a kickstart, Cudi welcoming you to his dreams where “everyday is sunny” and “everything plays out exactly how i want them to.” A quick 180 later, “Soundtrack 2 My Life” finds him dragged back to reality where he waxes poetic on his trials and tribulations that have driven him to admire ignorance and drugs. Never has an emcee wallowed in his own alienation and grief the way Cudi does on “Mr. Solo Dolo,” his ode to solitude. On the sex-driven, Crookers-esque “Enter Galactic”, Cudi doesn’t betray his guard despite a sexual encounter, claiming that though “a mind’s soul will connect/my heart you can’t collect.” Even in the most intimate of acts, he keeps to himself.

For those more independently inclined (hipsters) curious about the Ratatat and MGMT collaborations, the guest assisted tracks never outshine Cudi’s vision. Ratatat bring their unmistakable guitars to “Alive” in the most minimal way, whereas their production hand on “Pursuit of Happiness” lends a uniquely modular sound to Cudi who shares vocal duties with MGMT’s Andrew VanWyngarden. Interestingly, it’s Cudi’s staple producer Emile who conjures up a captivatingly expressive sound on “Cudi Zone” via his anachronistic use of classical strings over 80’s style synths à la 808s’ “RoboCop.”

It’s this attention to detail and his willingness to experiment with tone and atmosphere that sets Cudi leagues ahead of the rest of his freshman class peers. They may be still rapping about a fly wardrobe and fresh flows, but it’s Cudi’s introspective, self-aware rhymes and sparse yet tripped-out production that apples to apples can match his overall temperament and emotion, who can set a particular mood that affects an entire album, a feature often overlooked in a world of high profile producers and autotune.

Grade: B+

kid cudi on myspace

preview tracks from man on the moon: the end of day:

kid cudi – “soundtrack 2 my life”

kid cudi – “pursuit of happiness” f. ratatat and mgmt

-sunbear