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PHARRELL WILLIAMS: Well, the Internet was just
opening things up so widely that there were only
maybe a handful of archetypes in the industry
that were representing only a part of what it is
that we were thinking and feeling,
and so we just were like, let’s just go.
Let’s just completely be ourselves, unabashedly,
and be...
very proud of what and who we are.
And what and who we are is, like--
where we come from made huge impressions on us.
Huge impressions on our spirits and on our bodies
and what we wore and how we talked.
So, when you mention Cudi
and the, like, ever-growing, ever-expanding generation of folks
who do not adhere to boundaries,
we’re doing it because we’re human and it’s our right.
We can’t edit what we were exposed to
and what helped to form the way we see the world,
so we’re not gonna edit the result.
We now have the opportunity.
We are in front of cameras.
We are behind microphones. We are behind keyboards.
We are the pushers of pencils and pens.
And no one can tell us how to express ourselves.
In different modes of creativity,
there are different formulas, and all of that is subject to change.
In fact, that’s one thing I’ve learned about this life,
is nothing is really fixed.
All of it can be changed.
CUDI: All right, run it.
("Speedin’ Bullet 2 Heaven" by Kid Cudi playing)
♪ Oh, when I crash ♪
♪ When I crash ♪
♪ Or if I land ♪
♪ No matter the case ♪
♪ When I crash, when I crash ♪
♪ Or if I land ♪
♪ No matter the case ♪
♪ I’m all smiles, I’m all smiles ♪
♪ I’m all smiles ♪
♪ Give a fuck what they say ♪
♪ And I’m all smiles ♪
♪ I’m all smiles ♪
♪ Mm. ♪
(song fades)
CUDI: My mom always used to say, like,
"You were born to be on someone’s television."
And I’d be like, "Ah, yeah, right.
That’s not for me."
But, like, hanging out, I was always on.
I’m Kid Cudi, an artist out of, uh, Cleveland, Ohio.
I started pursuing music when I was 15.
I started writing, like, poems,
like, after my father passed away when I was 11.
I-I started trying to get in the game, doing talent shows,
um, all types of shit, like open mics,
like, anything I could get my name out there.
Freestyle battles, all that shit.
With my music, I’m definitely trying to inspire.
And my movement is a inspirational one.
I’m trying to lead the new movement to open kids’ minds about that.
And in Cleveland, it’s like there’s no room for that.
And if, you know, you try to do something different,
it’s like... motherfuckers is like, "Who this nigga?"
You know what I’m saying? Like, "Stick to the script."
-I felt like... -(crowd cheering)
fuck that.
Now is when we fucking turn up.
♪ I’m on the pursuit of happiness... ♪
That’s why I felt like I need to be in New York.
Yeah!
CUDI: Oh, is the camcorder actually recording?
-DOT DA GENIUS: Yeah. -CUDI: You recording all this?
I call myself Old Dot da Evil Genius, baby, you know,
’cause I got that crack for the street, man.
You know, I’m the George Jefferson of the ghetto, man.
-(laughter) -DOT: As far as rap,
at that moment, I had only worked
with all the drug dealers in my neighborhood.
We become closest friends, and he would come over,
and we’d be working on music from like 7:00 p.m. to like 7:00 a.m.
We got Kid Cudi. You know what I’m saying?
That nigga’s about to drop, so look out for the Kid, man.
-Kid Cudi. -From the Midwest side.
-Ah, man. -(laughing)
DOT: It was obsessive.
Like, we didn’t do anything.
-Just make music. -DOT: Cowboy Cudi.
-Let’s go hit up Carl’s Jr. -(Dot laughing)
Let’s go see what they got.
DOT: Cudi was one of the first few people I met
that it seemed like he didn’t care about what anyone thought.
Where the fuck did you get that shirt from?
Uh-oh.
Where’s he going? Come back!
(laughing)
It was different for me.
I’m from Brooklyn, man.
We... It’s about rap
at the end of the day,
but he was just bringing musical references
that I was not paying any attention to.
Pretty much, like, all I’ve been listening to is,
like, shit other than hip-hop.
Like, I’ve been zoning out, listening to
some Coldplay, you know, John Mayer.
You know what I’m saying?
Like, a lot of other shit like, you know,
alternative music, rock, old-school rock,
Electric Light Orchestra, Queen.
Whole bunch of shit like that, man, Crash Test Dummies.
I just been zoning out, listening to a lot of different music
so I could incorporate it in mine--
you know what I’m saying?-- as far as, like,
you know, good substance.
SCHOOLBOY Q: Most of my homeys never left California
until I, like, put ’em on a plane.
When you really get to travel the world and you get so far away from it,
you look at it like, "Whoa."
The ghetto’s so small. That’s all you see.
That’s all you know. What else you gonna do?
Like, what else you gonna rap about?
What else you gonna...
want to listen to?
That’s why I try to get my homeys out and expand they mind a little bit.
You can get distracted because most of
y-your main homeys, they ain’t into this shit.
So, even when you get in the car,
they’re only playing a certain type of shit.
You go to their house, they’re only doing a certain type of shit.
They dress only a certain type of way.
But there’s just so much space out there, like...
Like, niggas is walking on the moon and shit.
You know, when you get bored of one thing, do the next.
We’re just creators, man. We just want to create.
And it kind of makes you a weirdo, you know, but it’s a dope thing.
Like, we come up with a whole fucking thing from just the sound of air.
Our imagination is crazy.
So, it’s just being open to new things.
You never know. It might change your life.
He held down some jobs.
You know, kept getting fired.
This was actually a talk that he had with my parents,
’cause he got evicted, and they was letting him live,
but then after a while, it was like, "Yo, you got to do something.
Like, you can’t just stay at home all day."
And he was like, "I don’t want to work no more."
He was like, "I want to just do music."
We was all in the room,
like...
Man, shit, ’cause we, you know, living in the hood,
no glimmer of anything happening at all.
And he’s just like, "It’s gonna work. Trust me.
I don’t need a plan B."
Cudi would just have ideas in his head, and he’ll just shoot ’em to me, like,
"Yo, I think we should sample this.
"Listen to this rap.
What you think about this?" And...
He had an idea
for-for this song.
(melody from Kid Cudi’s "Day N Nite" plays)
He had the song pretty much written in his head.
I remember it being a two-day process.
We...
-pretty much made the beat. -(beat plays)
Recorded it the next day.
♪ Day and night ♪
♪ The lonely stoner seems to free his mind at night... ♪
Uploaded it to Myspace.
(beat stops)
And that was it.
(beat resumes)
CUDI: I wasn’t thinking about making an album.
I was just like, "Let’s try to make one good song here."
Just one good song and just perfect that,
and then from there we’ll figure everything out.
But, like, let me just make at least, like,
one song that I know is amazing.
I was going through a really rough time, and, uh,
it was really just, like, therapy for me to write it.
When I was working on "Day N Nite," like, I started to sing it.
Like... ♪ Day and night ♪
♪ Oh, I toss and turn... ♪
Like, just really sing it.
Dot was like, "Maybe you shouldn’t try to sing it.
"Maybe you should just, like, say it in a melodic way."
I wasn’t thinking about making a hit record.
I wasn’t thinking about if motherfuckers would like it.
I really didn’t give a fuck.
I wrote it for me. You know what I’m saying?
And if people felt it, that’s cool.
I was like, "Oh, shit. Okay.
Let me go lay this down and see what happens."
BOTH: It came out how it came out.
You know?
It was like, "Oh, shit."
You know what I mean?
That’s exactly how it was, is: "Oh, shit."
♪ ’Cause day and night... ♪
Man... (sighs)
Dope.
Man.
"Day N Nite" is just gonna keep growing.
It’s gonna be a timeless record that anybody’s gonna fuck with.
’Cause it’s so... you can relate to it
on so many different levels, you know what I mean?
So many different levels.
Anybody... anybody has some type of...
they can relate to at least one thing I talk about-- everybody.
You know what I’m saying?
It’s gonna be around for a long time.
It’s gonna be a classic.
♪ ’Cause day and night... ♪
DOT: "Day N Nite" is on the radio at this time.
Working security at Vice.
You know, I’m like, "Yo, I made this beat."
Like, "If you made this beat, why are you working here?
Why are you... why are you working in security?"
"I-I don’t know how I’m supposed to get money.
I don’t know how it works." Like, we didn’t know anything.
♪ At, at, at night. ♪
(song ends)
DENNIS CUMMINGS: Me and Cudi, we grew up together.
Always the different kids in our neighborhood.
I was a promoter in Cincinnati,
and I’m sitting in a... in a meeting, and "Day N Nite" comes on.
The one guy who was...
I was getting a club from, he’s like, "Yo, I love this song."
And I’m like, "Word. This is my guy."
He’s like, "That’s not your guy."
I’m like, "No, this is my guy. Like, this is my guy."
Like, "Well, let’s book him for a show."
Get away from him and call Cudi.
I’m like, "Yo, I got these guys who want to do this show.
I think we can pull it off."
He’s like, "Well, if it’s serious, let’s see if you can close it.
"I’ll make you my road manager.
You know, we gonna get out here and really do it."
And then right after that,
like, googling what a road manager was and the duties.
(laughing): You know what I’m saying? Like...
That whole "Internet rapper" thing is very hard for me to understand.
So, you put your song... you... Correct me if I’m wrong.
You didn’t have a computer, but you got your song
-on Myspace. -Yeah. Yeah.
Now, is this the "Day N Nite" record that we hear now today?
Yeah, I put, um, "Day N Nite" on my Myspace for the first time...
And when was that? What month was that?
That was like March 2007.
Around there. Yeah, March...
-2007? -Yeah. Yeah.
It was around then. I used to borrow my homeboy...
-Two thou... Hold on, it’s ’09. -My homeboy...
And so it’s been on there since...
-Yeah. -(sighs)
Been on there that long, man.
So you had a deal then, you didn’t have a deal then?
Uh, I actually just got my deal like two months ago. (laughs)
While this record’s been playing on the radio all the time,
-you just got your deal? -Yeah.
We made it on Billboard without a deal.
EMILE HAYNIE: I’d be in my studio, man, just, like,
making beats, going through people’s Myspace
and listening to new sounds, new artists.
That’s the way you kind of listened to new music at the time.
And I came across Cudi’s page.
He had "Day N Nite," was one of his songs,
and I was blown away the second I heard it.
I just thought I had... it was unlike anything I’d ever heard.
It just sounded new.
Like, what is this gen...
Like, what is he doing?
He’s singing, he’s got melody, but he’s not pushing the vocals too hard.
The production, everything about it just felt really new and exciting.
And then I noticed on his top eight friends list
was my friend Plain Pat.
PLAIN PAT: Well, I met Cudi in 2005.
When I heard the music, I was like, "Oh, okay.
This kid’s onto something."
And I bumped into him at a party downtown,
and we just... and we just started kicking it,
and then it turned into, like, "Need you to do this mixtape."
And I was... I was always apprehensive
’cause I didn’t want that responsibility of a artist,
but he was persistent, so... (chuckles)
All his early shit, he used to send it to me,
used to be like, "Man, this shit is, like..."
It’s so different and, like, weird that I would be, like, uncomfortable
but I loved it. (laughs)
You know what I mean? His flows, like, he would be...
you know, they would be, like, carry on into the next bar
or they would be, like, a little off beat or a little, like...
You know, but it was just so dope to me.
Like, it was just, like, so refreshing, so, like... kind of like when...
you know, when I first heard Ye, I was like, "Oh, whoa."
♪ ♪
KANYE WEST: We always listened to all forms of music.
That’s what was good about just watching MTV.
You got exposed to...
♪ Mr. Jones and me... ♪ (hums melody)
Like, all this alternative rock,
West Coast rap, East Coast rap,
Southern rap, singer-songwriter.
And the expanding your mind of "I listen to this
style of music and different styles of music" is...
That frontier’s been crossed, so the new frontier
of expanding your mind is
to not be boxed into a idea of your politics.
To be boxed into a idea of what the Internet is feeding you
within the echo chamber of the billion people
that are controlled by 50.
It’s just to go out, get out into nature,
go to places that are less crowded,
get into your own mind, into your own space.
And not just for, you know, the accolades
with inside of a system that was, you know, designed.
And what’s beautiful is that musicians and artists tap in
and express things in a way
and sew together things in a way
that help us to free our minds a lot of times.
That’s the connection that people have with Cudi and pure artists.
It’s just a thing
that... it’s what we felt.
It’s what we feel.
Cudi just does what he feels.
That’s the difference between the artist and others.
Cudi’s music, it connects with people, and it’s-it’s healing.
It’s not just for the sake of, "Here’s the rap music
"that you play while alcohol is being poured,
while DMs are being sent."
Like, nah, it’s not part of that game of popularity.
And it was always an alternative thing that became popular.
We all don’t have to do the exact same thing.
We were programmed from zero to seven
to fit into this thing we call reality,
but we’re breaking out of the constructs.
We’re not satisfied with the constructs of current society.
We as artists
are like a faucet,
and the more of our own dirt that we have,
you know, the harder it is, actually, for people to get
a clean message and a clean idea
and for us to be used to the maximum
of what God would want us to use us for.
I feel...
Well, that’s the end of those thoughts right there.
DOT: So, when I say, "Kid," y’all say, "Cudi."
-Kid. -AUDIENCE: Cudi!
-Kid. -Cudi!
When I say, "Fool’s," y’all say, "Gold."
-Fool’s. Fool’s. -Gold! Gold!
Yo, yo. Yo, yo.
That’s what I’m talking about.
What the fuck is up, y’all?
I just had that long-ass flight over here, man.
Y’all better show me some love up in this motherfucker.
I got crazy jet lag.
It’s like 10:35 New York time, and I’m rocking with y’all on no sleep.
Know what I’m talking about?
So I need everybody to come up to the stage.
Show me some love.
I know you got your drink and everything.
It’s all good.
We gonna rock out, man.
I got my homeboy Dot da Genius with me.
-I represent Fool’s Gold. -(feedback squeals)
Oh, man, we got feedback.
That’s how live we are right now. (chuckles)
Yeah, it wasn’t until we met Pat
and he locked in with Emile and there was some type of movement
that we started talking about a mixtape.
The mixtape released, and then we went to Australia.
Which was, like, the first tour ever.
-Just me and him. -(audience shouting)
(phone rings)
ROBERT ALEXANDER: Hello.
CUDI: I just have one note.
I just feel like this is a big moment.
-Mm-hmm. -Like, I toured the whole country,
and, like, maybe there should be some text on black
where it says...
’Cause BAPE wouldn’t give me three weeks off...
You know?
-Kid. -Cudi!
I know there’s been some, you know, problems
with pronouncing my name, but it’s "Cudi."
You know what I’m saying? It’s Cudi.
-So everybody say, "Cudi." -Cudi!
-Cudi! Cudi! -Cudi! Cudi!
Yeah, so there’ll be nobody coming up to me
saying "Coodie," then, a’ight?
Then we got that established.
It was crazy. The first show was literally,
like, maybe ten, 15 people.
And you could tell they were just drunk and they were just like,
"Oh, you know, it’s entertainment," you know?
You can tell that they didn’t know who he was,
but they might have heard "Day N Nite," which was kind of crazy.
♪ The lonely stoner seems to free his mind at night ♪
♪ He’s all alone, some things will never change ♪
♪ The lonely loner seems to free his mind at night ♪
♪ At, at, at night. ♪
(heavy beat plays)
SYLVIA RHONE: I’ve always looked for
the most off-the-wall music and artists that I can find,
because I think that’s
where the excitement comes.
When I signed Cudi, it was a very competitive bidding war.
It was night and day I stayed up...
(chuckles) to make this deal for a week.
He was the guy who
smashed and mashed culture and defied genres.
Everybody could see
that he was on the wave of something new.
(electronic music playing)
♪ ♪
JEFF BHASKER: He definitely has a keen sense of harmony.
I feel like
he has his own point of view and...
...maybe he feeds off, like, a certain energy
and there was an aesthetic going back and forth
through Pat and Emile
and Pat working with Kanye and crossing,
and then Kid Cudi put his stuff...
It was all in this, like, solar system
of vibration.
(music stops)
Shit.
Didn’t record it.
KANYE: When I first heard Cudi, it felt really new,
the combination of him
putting the melody with the rap in a way that
I hadn’t really heard that since, like, Bone Thugs.
PAT: I would play Kanye
early Cudi demos, like the stuff him and Dot were doing.
And then I guess, after we made the mixtape,
he was like, "Man, I need to be a part of this."
("Maui Wowie" by Kid Cudi playing)
♪ Going back to Honolulu. ♪
We were in Hawaii, and I was like, "Yo, Cudi,
you need to get out here. Figure it out."
He figured it out. He got out there.
And K-Kanye didn’t pay for it or nothing.
-First night in, he was writing... -ALL: "Heartless."
JEFF: I think it was actually the first time
that he had come down to Hawaii.
Had "Day N Nite" was, like, poppin’.
He’s on... he’s on a... on a high.
Then he’s got a... then he’s in the studio,
and we’re gonna, like, write, and we have the beat.
I just go, "Okay, Cudi, like, do the melody.
Do the... do the... do your Kid Cudi thing."
He was sitting in the front area in-in the Hawaii studio,
and I’m on the laptop, and he’s like, "Okay, this is what I got."
(audience cheering)
He said...
It’s like, "Aah! What?"
♪ Yo... ♪
Slam dunk for the win.
♪ I hear ’em talk ♪
♪ The coldest story ever told ♪
♪ Somewhere far along this road ♪
♪ He lost his soul to a woman so heartless... ♪
That’s just Cudi, man. Cudi just has that, like...
his thing with melody is just amazing.
♪ Heartless, mm, whoa ♪
♪ How could you be so heartless? ♪
-Wow. (laughs) -KANYE: Make some noise for Kid Cudi.
(audience cheering)
CUDI: From there, like, Kanye cosigned me,
and then I started working on 808s & Heartbreak.
I started working on Blueprint 3.
And this is all before my debut.
So it was like people were waiting.
If I had got caught up in expectations
and what people wanted from me,
Man on the Moon: The End of Day would not have sounded how it sounded.
Going in, I had this idea, like, "Yeah, Kanye’s gonna be involved,"
and all this and all that.
But, like, when it got to it and I got the deal done
and I was working on these songs with Pat and Emile and Dot,
I was really, like, "I’m creating a sound here.
I trust my vision."
And...
I might not need Kanye like that.
You know, and I kind of just put that noise out of my mind
and just kind of focused on the art
and my story and what I was trying to tell.
♪ You’re in my dream now. ♪
WILLOW SMITH: ♪ I watch the sun collapse and took up in the clizzoud ♪
♪ I am the lone wolf, go where I wanna. ♪
The acceptance and the knowledge to see
how to get your vision done
is-is an art in itself. (chuckles)
And really, it honestly just comes or it doesn’t.
And that’s something that I struggle with a lot
because it just sucks when you’re like,
"Let’s get it," and your heart and your mind is just like,
"We don’t really have anything to say right now.
So sorry about that."
You have to dig that well and get to that place
in order to really see what’s going on.
Or else I feel like I’m just writing...
some BS, low-key.
I never say no. (chuckles)
Never tell a artist no or, "You can’t," or, you know,
"Don’t do that."
They’re artists. They’re supposed to think outside the box
and do things that you think that you’re not supposed to do.
I mean, just making something is a fucking achievement,
and you shouldn’t, like,
say something is wack just because you don’t like it.
You know, like, somebody still
sat fucking down and made that shit with their hands and their, and their head.
You really got to be like-- I don’t even know.
I was about to say "comfortable," but, uh,
that’s definitely not me or anybody I know.
(laughs) You know what I mean?
You got to just, like-- you just got to love the shit, man.
SHIA LaBEOUF: What makes an artist is fully investing your heart.
That’s all it takes.
And so, if you don’t give a fuck,
then why invest your heart?
I think the best artists all have that...
one, that drive that they feel like they need to, to be able to survive,
but also this confidence in that
the people on the other side need this shit.
That, in sharing this with people,
healing can happen not just for the person making this shit
but for the person receiving this shit.
And in that connection, that’s where art is.
It’s in that
full investment of heart on both sides.
My favorite shit has come from
when I know in my heart I couldn’t have given anything else,
when I lose myself wholly and completely to this other thing.
Which really comes through collaboration.
It’s really nice to, like, fail in front of people.
And also feel like, on the other side of that failure,
these people still fuck with you.
It gives you a confidence level where you’re not afraid to fail.
JEFF: People can get so hung up on fucking up,
and, like, that’s kind of the main way you learn.
And sometimes you can just fuck up
into creating something new and amazing and beautiful.
Daring to suck.
(chuckles) Just dare to suck.
DON C: That new frontier,
it takes a lot of courage to go towards,
especially if it hasn’t been done before.
We see in a small bubble how positive energy can inspire others
to then effect even a bigger bubble.
So let’s just apply that principle and keep expounding on it
until all seven billion people on Earth is
inspired and happy.
SHIA: You’ll always have some haters, yeah,
who’ll be like, "What’s this weird Wiccan shit?"
If it was just me and somebody said that, I’d fucking sink into myself.
I’d fall apart.
But because I got a group of people holding me up,
I can actually have that no-fucks-to-give mentality.
JEFF: It’s okay to question.
It’s okay to explore all angles of a sound or a thought or an idea.
It radiates positivity.
And the belief that you can accomplish your dreams.
You can express yourself, and your deepest self is great.
The scariest, ugliest thing about you...
...is great.
COMMON: ♪ But toward the end of our first ten years ♪
♪ Into the millennium, we heard a voice ♪
♪ A voice who was speaking to us ♪
♪ From the underground for some time ♪
♪ A voice who spoke of vulnerabilities ♪
♪ And other human emotions and issues ♪
♪ Never before heard so vividly and honest ♪
♪ This is the story of a young man ♪
♪ Who not only believed in himself but his dreams, too ♪
♪ This is the story of the Man on the Moon. ♪
The first thing that was important to me
is to make something that...
kind of called out to the broken and the lost.
For me to find kids that felt like how I felt.
So I wanted to kind of design something tailor-made to Scott.
♪ Scotty... ♪
-♪ The soundtrack to my life ♪ -♪ Yeah, yeah ♪
♪ The soundtrack to my life. ♪
"Soundtrack 2 My Life" was like my introduction to the world.
Like, kind of like my... my mission statement.
It was really important for me to be as honest as possible.
Moments where I say, like,
"I’m probably this close to go and trying some coke."
Like, that was a real...
feeling.
I was a little worried about what my mom may think
and my family and friends,
but, uh, ultimately,
it was about being honest and just being a true artist.
EMILE: The way I knew how to make music
until I met Cudi was to sit in my studio alone and make beats,
come up with a beat, and then try to go pitch it.
I remember playing him the beats that I already had, and he just didn’t...
it wasn’t really connecting with him, you know?
And it wasn’t until I started playing records
and playing synth sounds and this that he started going.
It was instantaneous.
The second I started playing fresh stuff that was creating stuff on the spot,
that’s when the wheels started turning and he would just start writing.
You know, if I...
(playing chords)
Like, I’d be playing these kind of chords--
like, really simple things-- ’cause I just didn’t have
the wherewithal to, like, do anything more complex,
and he would just... I would do that,
and he would put the mic on, and he would go in the booth.
And I’m like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, I got to, like, put this...
I got to put this on tempo and put it in the computer."
And he just didn’t want to hear that. He was ready to go.
So, as... as kind of basic as that was that I just played,
he would then take it and do something fresh with it.
Anything I come up with
that I would maybe second-guess if I was just alone--
I would think, like, you know, "Who am I gonna play..."--
like, he would get inspired by it
and come up with something cool that would then inspire me,
and we would go back and forth.
So it was like-- completely changed
the way I thought about music, the way my process happened,
the sounds that I was looking for.
This takes you from being a beat maker to being a songwriter.
So we’d just kind of be listening...
we’d, like, flip through records...
("Birds" by Menahan Street Band playing)
And, um... I remember on this one he heard, like...
("The Contender" by Menahan Street Band playing)
Let’s see.
Is this the right record?
("The Traitor" by Menahan Street Band playing)
That sounds like it.
And we just kind of like...
(synth beat plays along with "The Traitor")
I think we were, like, probably playing video games or something
and that came on in the background, and he was just like, "What is that?"
I’m like, "Ah, it’s, like, my friends’ thing."
And he’s like, you know, "Loop it up and maybe pitch it."
So we, like, pitched it.
Pitched it way down, something like...
(plays melody with low pitch)
So I’d have something like that,
and by the time it took me to just do that and then put it into the computer
and just do a loop, he’s got the verse written.
So that would kind of be the process.
"Solo Dolo" was just so unorthodox and weird.
It’s just got that-that loop.
(loop from "The Traitor" continues playing)
That... (humming melody)
It’s just, like, hypnotizing.
And eerie.
It’s a little scary a little bit.
And I-I love how I sound on that record, you know?
Like, I’m really... I’m really proud of the performance.
(laughs)
♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪
SCHOOLBOY Q: "Solo Dolo," like,
bro, when that shit come in, like...
♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪
And it’s like, "Oh, my God, this shit is crazy."
PAT: We already had "Pursuit."
I mean, we had basically the album, and the label was like,
"We need another ’Day N Nite.’"
And it’s like, yeah, but "Day N Nite"
wasn’t "Day N Nite" until it became "Day N Nite."
And they were pushing us to, you know,
make a radio song or make something catchy.
But, you know, Cudi wasn’t hearing... he wasn’t trying to hear none of that.
And I was like, "No, you have to listen to me.
You have to listen."
Like, I was in that office having a tantrum.
I was like, "No.
"This is the next single.
You have to believe me. Trust me."
Our next guest is a, uh, popular rapper
whose forthcoming CD, uh, right here is entitled...
ALL: Man on the Moon: The End of the Day.
Please give a huge welcome to Kid Cudi.
♪ I’m on the pursuit of happiness, and I know ♪
♪ Everything that shine ain’t always gonna be gold, hey ♪
♪ I’ll be fine once I get it ♪
♪ I’ll be good... ♪
ALL: Man on the Moon...
NOAH CALLAHAN-BEVER: ...is arguably
one of the most influential albums in the last
20 years.
SCHOOLBOY Q: Where I come from, we don’t...
we don’t even try to touch those feelings
and emotions, like being, like, uh, depressed or sad.
And if you are depressed, you don’t mention it.
You keep that in.
You-you fight through it, nigga. Suck it up.
Like, you know what I mean?
No crying. Chin up, chest out.
NOAH: He pulled back the layers
to show you some universal truths.
That created a depth of connection
that very, very few artists are able to create.
SCHOOLBOY Q: Songs like "Pursuit of Happiness" and shit.
You know, that’s, like, basically saying, "Hey, nigga, you depressed.
"You can’t hide it.
"You trying to act like you don’t want to hear the song.
"You’re constantly listening to it
while trying to act like you’re not listening to it."
That was like a caver for me.
Like, all that "chin up, chest out" shit was a real caver
when that "Pursuit of Happiness" really hits you.
CUDI: It’s a really dark song.
Probably one of the darkest on the album.
That’s why it’s labeled "Nightmare."
I think that got lost on some people.
When we did the remix and stuff like that, it became, like, something else.
So it bothered me at first.
I was like, "Oh, they missed the point.
"This is not supposed to be celebrated.
I’m talking about drinking and driving."
Like, I’m very reckless on the song.
I’m saying, "I’m-a do just what I want." Saying, "Fuck that."
Like, it’s... it’s very rebellious.
But now, like, I-I don’t really...
I don’t really trip about that.
Like, I love the reaction to "Pursuit" every time I do it at the shows.
Like, I got to perform that song. You know?
Like, I’ll be performing that song forever.
♪ Hey, hey, hey... ♪
ALL: Man on the Moon.
♪ Uh, little homey... ♪
He’s soulful, and he’s funny,
-and he’s so sensitive. -You say what, now?
-JEFF: But those melodies. -ALL: Melodies.
No one else has those melodies.
Like on, uh, "Heart of a Lion" and...
♪ No, no, no, no, no ♪
-♪ Yeah. ♪ -And all that stuff.
You feel like, "Aw, if I had a beat, man,
I could come up with that shit," you know, but you can’t.
SCHOOLBOY Q: It was just a different vibe,
and it was no shit I never heard before.
Dude, I was just like,
"What the fuck am I listening to?"
Right, I’m like... I didn’t get it.
Like, "Why do I like this shit?" Like...
I kept playing this shit.
Kept, kept playing this shit.
And then I got it. I’m like, "This shit is just hard."
JADEN SMITH: When I was younger, I would just always
hang out with my older brother, and my older brother
was just obsessed with listening to Cudi, you know...
-"Pursuit of Happiness." -"Cudi Zone." -"Heart of a Lion."
...and he would just put it on loop, like, all day,
so, like, I didn’t even know who we were listening to
for the longest time,
and then it just kind of became ingrained into me.
It’s showing people all over the world that they can do whatever they want,
especially people of color who are just like,
"Oh, I can’t do this," or, "This is not my thing."
It’s like, "No, this can be your thing."
Whatever your thing is, you can do that.
That opened up a whole new frontier of just kids
that are now today the ones that are
-the forerunners of culture. -I know.
When I heard Man on the Moon, that was the first time
I heard an album, like, so...
ALL: ...unique.
He just was the wizard.
Bridging techno and rap, I mean, just all these things, you know, like,
that weren’t necessarily being done.
Wizard.
You know, you bring in something from a completely different world
into your world, and it’s not normal,
but it works, and people like, "Okay, well, now we can do that."
I don’t know.
That nigga just was a different... he was a weird, ill nigga.
(chuckling): Like...
he was a ill nigga, man, you know?
Honestly, "Sky Might Fall."
Like, I can’t lie. I can’t lie.
(laughs)
♪ The sky might fall, the sky might fall ♪
♪ But I’m not worried at all ♪
♪ Hey, hey, I let ’em know somethin’... ♪
-DON C: When it came out... -BOTH: Man on the Moon.
DON C: ...album connected with a audience of kids
that had never had a artist connect with them.
Ye started the movement with College Dropout.
Man on the Moon picked it up, and then it was a big momentum
of that snowball effect that really completely affected culture.
Before then, people only represented,
like, "I’m the cool guy," or, "I’m the thug,"
or, "I’m the gangster."
But it was never, like, "I’m a introvert.
I’m hurt over these things that have happened in my life."
These are feelings we all go through, but nobody wants to talk about it.
Now we all feel comfortable because of that.
A$AP ROCKY: He was changing the game by being his own protégé
and musing himself and letting Kanye muse him and...
and show people, like, yo, you can be weird.
You can be yourself.
You can be from Cleveland.
You can be from wherever.
TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET: There was that relatability to it.
There was that immediacy to it.
And this was the music
I was hearing that I felt like, "Whoa, he’s speaking to my soul."
I remember having to take pauses from listening to it
’cause I loved it and it was therapeutic,
and yet at the same time, I don’t know what that...
I’m sure a scientist could speak to it better than I could.
DR. CANDICE NORCOTT: We don’t all have language about emotions,
so to be able to see a piece of art
and have that pull from you an authentic emotion is so powerful.
Music that is emotional or "sad" helps you but also, like,
brings it on even more in some way.
And I think that’s really important.
CUDI: All right, run it.
♪ I never gave a fuck ♪
♪ I never gave a fuck about what niggas thought about me ♪
♪ I mean, I did, but, like, fuck it ♪
♪ You know what I’m saying? ♪
NOAH: Hip-hop had done an incredible job
of articulating a lot of things
about the environments that these artists
were coming up in and did a lot less talking about
what was going on inside of those artists’ heads.
Cudi had no reservations
about delving into his most private, dark thoughts.
JOE LA PUMA: You’ll see it in today’s artists.
They don’t talk about Cudi,
"Oh, I love his music. He’s so dope. He dress great."
You know what they say?
Kid Cudi, man, Kid Cudi’s, like, really, like,
one of the main dudes I kind of, like, looked at or listened to all the time.
BOTH: He saved my life.
He saved me from doing,
like, random bad things to myself, kept me, like, focused.
JOE: You hear that numerous times
when people talk about Cudi.
You hear that when
his fans talk about Cudi.
And you also hear it from
some of the biggest people
-in pop culture right now a decade later. -Pop culture.
TRAVIS SCOTT: I feel like he really dialed in on, like,
the youth and really dialed in on, like, um, inspiration,
like, how to inspire you.
Like, his words was, like, very selected on, like, what to do.
I-I feel like he always made the soundtrack
-to, like, my life. -Soundtrack to my life.
Or anybody’s life who was,
like, going through the same thing.
If you’re a big Cudi fan, like, you know exactly what I’m saying.
When I think about albums that have colored my life
or narrated my come-up, this is the biggest one.
This is the biggest one for my maturation from, like, being a little teenager
to, like, stepping into the real world.
He spit his truth in a way that seemed accessible,
-and he was vulnerable. -DOT: Vulnerable.
And was talking about things like,
"Nobody knows, but I’m-I’m feeling a lot."
He gave me, like, a waiver to be open to my emotions, you know?
The album really starts there.
TIMOTHÉE: And isn’t it ironic that
in a genre that is about impenetrability,
bravado in the face of pain,
that the one that would’ve transcended
that confrontation of ego and of, like, competition
would be the one that was the least about how big his chain was
or, you know, how hard his beats slapped
but was the guy that was, like, "Hey, I’m a human,
"and this is what I go through,
and love it or hate it, like, this is my reality."
LIL YACHTY: You know, I went to college, and I had this red hair,
and, man, I’d walk in the cafeteria or when I walked to class, yo, I just...
I saw people looking at me, laughing at me and made jokes.
I mean, I was hurt, I felt it, I could feel the eyes,
but it was this thing I had on my head.
I always used to know, like, I had to embrace myself.
With Cudi-- and I would never say this to his face.
That’d be kind of weird.
But definitely appreciate him for being him so that I could be me.
’Cause, you know, times get hard,
for anyone at any time, but you just always have to realize
that there’s more to life than that very moment.
That thought can get clouded,
you know, because sometimes it’s just, in the moment,
things get so tough that it’s hard to even imagine
the fact that-that things could be better somewhere else.
I don’t know, it was just something I always had in mind.
I always knew there was more to life than this.
Than this school, than this dorm and these kids.
Just knew there was more, and I knew I was gonna achieve it.
("Up Up & Away" by Kid Cudi playing)
COMMON: ♪ The end is never the end ♪
♪ A new challenge awaits ♪
♪ A test no man could be prepared for ♪
♪ A new hell he must conquer and destroy ♪
♪ A new level of growth he must confront himself ♪
♪ The machine and the ghost within ♪
♪ This is the journey of the Man on the Moon. ♪
(song ends)
I never worried about the music part.
The sadness, I only worried about him.
He was a guy that stayed to himself a lot.
In the beginning, it was a hard adjustment for him to make.
There’s the saying, right? "Everywhere you go, there you are."
And when you get more money, you think that things will get better,
things will get easier.
But when you have lots of eyes on you,
it can magnify feelings of negative self-perception,
and that can be particularly vulnerable and hurtful.
There are people who say, you know, "That song saved my life."
And that’s got to feel extremely scary.
I have these people’s lives in my hand, but I’m struggling here, too.
What’s my responsibility?
The pressure in that can be overwhelming.
CUDI: I just really found it hard to be happy.
(audience cheering)
I’m like, "Okay, I’m successful."
Like, I accomplished what I came to New York City to accomplish.
But, um...
I was miserable, man.
I just couldn’t help but feel like Richie Rich or somebody.
Like, you know, I had security with me everywhere I went
and, like, people looking out for me.
There would be some nights where I’d be at the club
and I would just run out the club
and run for blocks.
And I would hop in a yellow cab, trying to get away from my security.
And my security would get in a cab
and follow me all the way home and be right there.
I could never lose his ass.
I just had a hard time dealing with the adjustments
from being this-this guy,
from being Scott, to being Kid Cudi.
♪ ♪
It was a little bit of a nightmare for me
because I wasn’t right with myself.
When I would do shows, I didn’t feel anything.
I think I was scared and intimidated by the stage.
Like, if you look at some of my early performances,
I’m not smiling.
I just want to be around good people.
I want to look them in the eyes and see their soul
and know that they’re real people and they’re shooting me straight.
I didn’t get that a lot.
I was just like, "Man, these people might...
"I-I don’t know if they like me for me
or if they like me ’cause of my cosign with Kanye."
Or maybe they just like "Day N Nite"
and they don’t even know about the other music.
Like, I don’t... I didn’t really know what that was,
why people were into me as a artist.
And I was just like, "Well, maybe this isn’t for me."
There was a lot of good moments recording the album.
But after it was done, it was, like...
promoting it, and people would ask me questions,
personal questions that I wasn’t ready to answer.
For some reason-- and this is the truth--
I never thought that being so honest would, in turn, have people wanting
to ask me so many personal questions.
People would be like, "Oh, you lost your dad at 11 years old.
What was that like?"
These are questions that I’ve never been asked before.
This is, like, stuff that I’ve never even thought about.
When my father died, I camouflaged all my feelings.
I-I tucked that shit away.
I pretended like that shit didn’t even happen.
And I would do interviews with sunglasses on,
and I’d be on cocaine, and I’d just be, like,
sitting there and answering these questions.
Because that’s the only way I could talk about stuff like that.
I would never leave my house.
I wouldn’t go out and do anything.
But when I did cocaine, I could be out in the street.
I’d be the mayor.
I’d be running out in the street.
People were seeing me signing autographs.
I’m taking pictures. I’m like, "Yo, what’s good?"
It gave me confidence to step out the house.
To be normal.
ROBERT: So, what was the approach
of, uh, Man on the Moon II?
(laughs)
Ah, man.
(sucks teeth)
I don’t want to talk about Man on the Moon II.
I don’t really want to get-- D-Do you want to go to Man on the...
-Yeah. -Yeah?
You know, early on, it was fine.
It wasn’t till after, uh, everything became su-successful
that everything kind of, like, got dark.
Oh, you mean the ending?
-Yeah, it’s too... -(electronic tone plays)
(beat plays briefly)
Mm...
I want to put more, like...
-(makes whooshing sound) -PAT: Right, it needs...
it needs, like, some more layers and shit.
CUDI: After Man on the Moon was finished,
I went right back to the studio.
EMILE: You know, we were like brothers.
We were all in the studio constantly, and, like, you know, you have that thing
of, like, we shared hotel rooms and going and doing his first shows
for 30 people in Jersey somewhere and...
You know, we went through all that, and, uh,
you know, the dynamic shifts naturally. It just has to.
DOT: He definitely was going through things.
You could tell that he just wasn’t, like, feeling it.
I just remember it going from us doing a show,
doing an after-party.
(lively chatter)
Like, usually having a lot going on all the time,
and then he just completely deaded all that.
He would have moments like this before the first album.
You know, like, he would be dealing with something.
He’ll just lock himself in a room in the house by himself.
So that whole "lonely stoner" shit is...
you know, it’s a fact.
PAT: You know, for me personally, it was like... with Ye...
just, like, working with Cudi and Ye, I was...
I... it-it was a lot for me to handle because...
’cause I-I feel like... I feel like I could’ve...
I feel like, um... (sucks teeth)
like I was... I just feel like I could’ve been there
for Cudi more, and maybe it would’ve went different.
-(cameras clicking) -(indistinct chatter)
EMILE: The train is just moving, like, super fast,
and he’s, like, traveling the world.
He’s got all these obligations.
CREW MEMBER: Roll playback!
EMILE: He’s got superfans.
He’s got huge tours. It’s all moving.
You don’t want to stop it, but what do you do?
He didn’t seem happy at all,
and he didn’t seem to be looking forward to anything.
I also think that he just had this idea that he wasn’t gonna live.
DOT: Besides the mood swings, it was always
100% in the studio.
You have to understand, Cudi’s my brother.
The fact that he was able to hide it from me
bothers me a lot,
but he was very good at-at hiding it.
CUDI: The pressures of having to live up to the hype,
I didn’t know if I could really embrace what I was becoming.
(sings indistinctly)
And I was using cocaine
to escape from reality.
PAT (chuckling): I didn’t realize that, like, how deep it was
of, like, how deep the lyrics were.
♪ Want to know what it sound like ♪
♪ When I’m not on drugs? ♪
♪ Please, please don’t play this song... ♪
Yeah, that song... I don’t know, man.
I never liked that song.
I produced it. We did it together.
It was too re... it was, like, I was seeing it every day.
♪ ♪
PAT: Like, you hear the lyrics, you know,
but it’s not just, like, for this album.
It’s like... this is his real life.
CUDI: I had got arrested before the album was finished,
and, uh, I remember I got out of jail, and I was ashamed
because I grew up with two uncles that were addicted to crack.
So the fact that I got into cocaine
really made me feel like I let them down,
like I was letting my mom down.
But I’m glad I got arrested because that’s when I quit.
I don’t think I would’ve quit if I...
If-if people didn’t find out about it, I would’ve kept-kept doing it.
(song changes)
♪ ♪
People started treating me different
and looking at me different, and that fucked me up.
Everybody, I think, like, in the media, they kind of...
for a long time, they just painted me as this guy who
has some personal problems and is depressed.
♪ No one wants a troubled boy... ♪
That really bothered me a lot...
...’cause I wasn’t depressed and down all the time.
And that was the year my daughter was born.
And I want y’all to meet my daughter.
She’s the love of my life, and I just want her
-to see what Daddy does. -(cheering)
When I was with her, I was the happiest I could ever be.
But I wasn’t with her all the time.
It’s just something that comes with it.
It’s not about what the media is saying.
It’s about these kids.
So I just made sure to focus, like, on that,
the fact that it was helping people,
and that’s always been my mission.
It’s just like the line...
That’s truly what it was, you know?
I sacrifice the privacy of my life
and put my story out there to help others.
♪ ♪
(music stops)
-Need a break. -ROBERT: Okay.
Thank you.
("Soundtrack 2 My Life" by Kid Cudi playing)
♪ She copped the toys I would play with in my room by myself ♪
♪ Why he by himself? He got two older brothers... ♪
SHIA: I’ve always felt like me and him are just very similar, man.
Like, he was always-- some kind of kinship, spirit-wise.
I have really charming memories of him, man.
He’s like a fucking teddy bear in my heart.
I remember being in Amsterdam with him.
People running around all through the fucking streets,
trying to chase him-- no bodyguard.
And I remember thinking, like,
"This motherfucker’s a superstar, and he’s just,
like, hanging out with us, you know?"
He never lost that...
You know, he still has that.
And really, you can only be his friend
if you are in the midst of creating something with him.
Not because he’s trying to use you, but because that’s the only time
when his spirits are up.
How’d the Shia interview come out?
I remember sitting with him. (laughing): Oh, my God.
I remember sitting with him.
I think he was on tour or something, and he’s like,
"Hey, man, I want to make this... this fucking cartoon about my childhood."
I’m like, "Bet. I’m on it."
So I write this treatment, and I put everything into it.
ROBERT: He talked about a Adult Swim meeting
-you went to with him. -(laughing)
There’s like five people in the room from Adult Swim,
and they’re all, like, kind of vibing with the treatment.
And I never really pitched shit in my life ever,
so I’m thinking, "Ooh, gosh, this is going well."
(laughing): And he, in the middle of the meeting,
he just takes the pages out of my hand.
He goes, "This is bullshit," and he threw the fucking pages out
in the meeting, and then stormed out of the meeting.
(laughing): Nah, I didn’t do that.
I grabbed... I grabbed the script out his hand
’cause it was a script that I didn’t read that he wrote on his own.
It was quite aggressive.
It was really smooth how I did it
’cause he took it out, and then right when he pulled it out,
I was like, "No, no, no, no."
And he was pissed.
He had given me a passport to his life story.
He had given me access to everything. I’m talking to his mother.
And I had put it in the pages.
And there was shit in the pages that he just...
we had never double-checked with each other,
and there were certain things he didn’t want to talk about.
He’s so aware of how he’s being perceived that he wants to shape it
to such a degree that it doesn’t allow him to be free.
Which is why we’ve had contention, me and him.
It’s ’cause I am a digger and I’m curious as fuck,
and I’ll go there with him and he’ll shut it down.
I didn’t understand that for years, you know?
Um, and we got better, and-and then we fell out,
and we got better and we fell out.
We both love each other, but we’re both really passionate people.
That’s why I love him so much, because, like,
I feel like he understands me
and I understand him.
It’s hard to find
people like that in the industry
that are, like, trying to create something new,
but it’s always been an escape for me.
And it’s freeing.
♪ ♪
Dennis, my manager,
bought me a guitar one year, and I was like...
"Why’d you buy me that?"
He said, "Ah, man, I was just thinking you could get into the guitar."
I was like, "I don’t play guitar, though."
(laughing): You know?
And he just bought me this guitar.
And then I got the idea to just go ahead and teach myself.
That was...
me just...
trying to feel something.
I needed to feel something with the music.
The fact that I was Black, playing the guitar, doing rock music,
that was, like, weird for people, I think.
Even if it was a weird thing,
I still wouldn’t care and I still was just, like,
adamant about learning this instrument
and proving to myself that I could do it.
(plays repeating electric guitar riff)
-Get any of that? -Hmm?
-You got it? -Uh, no.
Uh, let’s-let’s do it again. I wasn’t recording.
-You recording? -No.
(laughing): Son of a bitch.
I was just getting warm anyway.
("Brake" by WZRD playing)
WZRD, I did that album sober.
I wasn’t drinking.
I wasn’t smoking, I don’t think.
Or was I smoking and I wasn’t drinking?
I can’t remember. (laughs)
♪ Mm, somebody help me ♪
♪ Does anyone care? ♪
♪ Can anyone hear me? ♪
♪ Is anyone there? ♪
DENNIS: The motivation from that was
he definitely wanted to start a band with Dot.
♪ ♪
He may say something different, but I think some of it also
stemmed from him being, like, over being out on that stage by himself.
Him wanting to bring somebody else in that fishbowl.
("Teleport 2 Me, Jamie" by WZRD playing)
(indistinct chatter)
(laughter)
♪ I want you, girl ♪
♪ And I need your body right here... ♪
CUDI: I was excited about this new sound
and everything about it.
I had the perm, and...
(laughing): Like, I had a new look and...
Like, you know what I’m saying?
♪ Won’t you teleport to me? ♪
♪ Yo, oh, oh... ♪
♪ Right here, won’t you teleport... ♪
It was therapeutic.
-♪ Baby. ♪ -(song ends)
You know, I was in a really happy place when I made WZRD.
We’re not coming at you like, "Shut the fuck up
and, like, listen to our music."
-You came here for a purpose. -WOMAN: Exactly.
-You came here to hear our music. -Fuck that...
So fucking listen to what we’re talking about
because we’re trying to educate you on what we’re doing.
-It’s as simple as that. -(applause, cheering)
You know what I’m saying?
-No claps! No claps! -(applause stops)
A lot of people think I’m an asshole and shit.
Whatever. Think what you want.
But, like, nigga, I... this is the shit
that keeps me alive, making these fucking songs,
so fuck you if you can’t listen while I’m playing ’em.
That’s how I feel.
Wholeheartedly.
(scattered chatter)
No more questions. I want to just get the fuck out of here.
I wouldn’t want to wish my life on anybody.
Like, the stuff that I was going through, I wouldn’t want anyone to go through that.
But I was coming to terms
with the reality of me being such a...
...a dark person and being depressed
and facing the fact that people
don’t really want to fuck with someone who doesn’t have their shit together.
And then, after the second album, that’s when I switched labels.
And I lost Sylvia Rhone, and that was a big deal for me.
The person that believed in me and signed me, I lost her.
My career would have been different if I had Sylvia Rhone.
’Cause Sylvia believed in me like nobody else in the industry.
No matter how weird or how strange the music would be,
she would be totally all in with what I wanted to do.
And it’s tough ’cause these labels are cutthroat.
I know they support me, but it’s still like,
"Where’s the radio single?"
And it’s like, "Man, I’m Kid Cudi.
We don’t think about that."
SHIA: You know, you wouldn’t have had
that lean into punk rock from rap without Cudi, like, risking.
He had to risk himself and get flayed for it
’cause what they wanted from him was another Man on the Moon.
He’s got a bunch of Man on the Moons sitting in a backpack.
His thing is he hates repeating himself.
He feels passé or like he’s not pushing it.
He winds up sabotaging himself from, like, a certain kind of pop success
because he’s so dissatisfied with the rest of life.
Out of that dissatisfaction, you wind up with incredible art
and a really fractured person.
CUDI: I’ll be having to remind cats,
like, yo, we exist on a whole nother plane.
I didn’t get on through radio.
I got on on the Internet.
I was working with Kanye West, Jay-Z without radio play.
I can’t busy myself worrying about the radio.
The fucking radio.
(beat playing)
Do I want to have a record on the radio?
Yeah, but I want it to be organic.
I want people to play my record because it’s hot, not because
the label is telling them to play it.
I don’t really get caught up on sales or anything like that.
If I did, I would’ve been like, "Aw, it’s over.
People don’t want to listen to me anymore. I’m done."
But I was like, "Okay.
"People didn’t respond to that.
"Cool.
I’m-a get back to my shit, introduce some new vibes."
(heavy beat playing)
Let’s go!
All these songs, like, to perform at the concerts,
-are gonna be outrageous. -(music stops)
Outrageous, ’cause, see, the thing, like, with my shows,
there’s so much of that slow shit
on the Man on the Moon material, so it’s like,
we got high ones, we got low ones.
-Yeah, yeah. -And I never really have done up-tempo records.
-Right. -So the only time the show get hype
-is when we do the remix part. -Right, right, right.
But all these songs, "Immortal," like...
-Yeah, yeah, yeah. -Niggas gonna be turned up.
-♪ I’m living my life ♪ -(crowd cheering)
♪ As if I got powers ♪
♪ And tonight I feel immortal ♪
♪ I said, tonight I feel immortal ♪
♪ Oh ♪
♪ Tonight I feel immortal ♪
♪ Whoa. ♪
We have a job to introduce new flavors and new experiences.
-Hit it. -(beat plays, crowd cheers)
I’ve always been about: How can I do that?
How can I push it?
-How can I... -Everybody!
...give people something that they haven’t heard before?
♪ Say, who gonna hold me down now? ♪
♪ I wanna get high, y’all ♪
Hey! ♪ Whoa, whoa ♪
-♪ I wanna get high, y’all ♪ -♪ Let me know, hey ♪
♪ Need it, need it to get by, y’all ♪
♪ Whoa, I need it ♪
-♪ Can you get me high, y’all? ♪ -♪ Hey, oh. ♪
(cheering and applause)
In the moment, people might not understand that, but...
you have to stay true to your beliefs.
(chanting): Cudi! Cudi! Cudi! Cudi! Cudi!
CUDI: I always stay true to Scott.
And as long as I focus in that way,
I should be good.
Look at all these fucking people!
Y’all feel that energy?!
(cheering)
("Down & Out" playing)
Let’s take it to the mixtape!
Hands high!
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ Ha-ha-ha-ha ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ Ha-ha, ha-ha-ha-ha ♪
What? When I say, "Kid," y’all say, "Cudi."
-Kid. Kid. -Cudi! Cudi!
When I say, "Kid," y’all say, "Cudi."
-Kid. Kid. -Cudi! Cudi!
-Nice! -(cheering)
LIL YACHTY: When I do shit,
like, I’ll be so fearful of people
not understanding something, I’ll explain everything.
He’s kind of opposite.
He just drops it.
If you don’t understand it, whatever.
Which is so cool.
("Going to the Ceremony" playing)
I wish I could be like that.
-Do you guys feel it? -(cheering)
CUDI: The moment I start
sounding like somebody else, that’s when I fail.
♪ Drinking again, drinking again... ♪
But then there’s also a side of me that’s like,
"Well, what if they don’t like it
and the label’s not gonna promote it and people are gonna shit on it?"
There’s kind of that, but it’s not stopping me
from executing it.
It’s like a thought, and then it’s like, "Well, fuck it.
I’m just gonna do this."
You know, I’m human.
(vocalizing)
-(song ends) -(cheering)
A$AP ROCKY: The connection is the high.
And that’s really what everybody’s chasing--
that high, you know?
That’s when you finally feel like a natural part of something.
It’s like finding your roots.
Because you could have an opinion,
a strong opinion on something that says,
I know that this naturally isn’t supposed to be cool,
but there’s something really dope about this.
Man, this is amazing.
♪ Can we take the journey... ♪
You could make music about nothing all day,
and people still could play it-- it’s a dope beat.
You know, you’re saying some shit, repetitive, on the hook, but...
some people make shit you connect to, and you’re like, "Damn."
♪ Where you at? Where you going? ♪
♪ Hey, Mr. Rager ♪
♪ Where the hell you at? Where the fuck you going? ♪
♪ Hey, Mr. Rager ♪
♪ Where you at? Where you going? ♪
♪ Hey, Mr. Rager ♪
♪ Hey ♪
♪ Mm ♪
♪ Yeah. ♪
-Thank you! -(cheering)
♪ ♪
SHIA: His pain is always felt very at the surface.
He smiles a whole lot,
but his smile is hiding something.
I remember coming in one time.
I think he was making the rock album with Pat.
And I came in-- it was too far ahead for me.
I was like, "Nah, man, this ain’t it at all."
And I said that, and he kicked me out his house,
and we didn’t talk for a long time.
Even if-if you’re gonna tell him the truth,
you got to find a way to deliver it ’cause he’s such a fucking feeler.
He’s mining his heart every time he makes an album.
He’s in there digging.
You know, he’s digging and mining for his truth
that is also something that he feels like he can present
in an accessible way and make jams out of.
Sometimes you make your dopest shit in the darkest place.
I mean, my favorite Kid Cudi album is fucking, uh,
Speedin’ Bullet 2 Heaven.
It’s crazy.
Man, and "Confused," of course, "Confused."
It must have been a dark time for bro.
I don’t know if I want to talk about "Confused"
’cause that was, like, a really dark time for me.
I don’t want to talk about any song from...
-Speedin’ Bullet. -ROBERT: Speedin’ Bullet?
-Okay, cool. -Yeah, yeah.
Speedin’ Bullet 2 Heaven, I was the darkest.
I was darker than Man on the Moon II.
I felt like I was living the right way,
but I still felt empty inside.
People look up to me, but I’m not a happy person.
So, a lot of the times, I felt like a fraud,
and that’s what drove me to...
the dark side of what I was dealing with.
SHIA: You know, the cocaine shit scared me deeply.
When he started doing it, I couldn’t talk to him no more.
Like, I couldn’t get to him no more.
He started getting isolated.
Wouldn’t respond, kind of thing.
That’s when we, like...
we lost all contact with each other for a long time.
Not just me, but a lot of his fr...
Like, he just... he got very, very isolated.
And I don’t really know about that chunk of his life.
I don’t re... We didn’t hang out then.
CUDI: Passion, Pain, I wrote from a hopeful place.
Like, "I hope I can feel this way someday,"
and, "This is what I want to feel."
I feel sorry for every relationship I had, you know?
I just put girls through such...
...drama because I wasn’t happy and I wasn’t where I needed to be.
That added to my darkness,
the fact that I couldn’t be in a relationship.
I had just started using again.
I’m not happy with myself
that I allowed myself to go back to that...
...after all these years.
I was just really ashamed.
I was suicidal,
and I was at a place where I was trying to plan it.
And I knew that if I...
...didn’t go get help that something would’ve happened.
I wanted to, deep down...
I wanted to be better.
And I didn’t want to give up
and let people down.
All would’ve been lost.
Everything I worked hard for.
I couldn’t leave my daughter.
Leave my mom.
My sister and my brothers.
I just had to get my shit together.
♪ ♪
(audience cheering)
I just want to take this time out to say
that...
Kid Cudi is my brother and I hope he’s doing well tonight.
(cheering)
The most important artist in the past ten years.
Most influential.
And I hope he’s doing well.
♪ ♪
WILLOW: We’re taught to come from
a mindset at a very young age of lack.
Everybody.
And I feel like that feeling of not thinking that you’re good enough
or being insecure about your art is-is natural,
but at the same time, I feel like it’s taught.
All humans are different, and every single human
has something so unique and special to offer.
And people forget that everyone is basically feeling the same way:
lost, confused,
not really sure why they’re here.
That anxiety-- like, everyone is feeling that
and trying to cover it up in some sort of way.
We’re gonna come together in our flaws,
in our insecurities, in our joy, in our happiness,
and accept it all as beautiful and as natural.
That’s what’s gonna break down those walls and make everyone be like,
"Nah, I understand you and your pain and your joy.
We’re gonna be okay."
WOMAN: I’m a little nervous, okay?
Every time I talk about him, I get a little emotional.
Always been there for me.
Tough times, sad times.
Good times.
His music helps me a lot.
When you’re feeling alone.
He means the world to me.
WOMAN 2: There was always someone who related to me.
Yeah, I knew that
somebody out there sort of knew how I felt.
And that was Cudi to me.
MAN: To me, he means like a brother to me.
Somebody I look up to.
Man on the Moon, that was like the start of my life.
WOMAN 3: He just... he opened up a new side of me
to where I could just totally understand that I wasn’t alone.
WOMAN 4: He’s helped me and motivated me
through a lot of down times in my life,
and I feel like he’s helped me as an artist grow
and be more vulnerable myself
and letting people around me know that, like,
it’s okay to feel the way you do and it’s okay to be sad.
SHIA: You know, I have huge chunks of my 20s, like,
where I held this, like... this bullshit exterior.
’Cause I come from fucking Disney Channel into Spielberg,
where it was like, "You better smile a lot."
He had that, and I always identified with that in him--
the fact that he smiles as a way of surviving.
And so I would bump his album nonstop all through that whole chapter of my life
because we shared sensibilities.
So he unlocked this certain kind of vulnerability which felt
more authentic to who I was.
It’s always been, like... like, that journey, like--
he was always meant to be my best friend. Yeah.
And he may not speak about it the same way,
but I have no shame in saying that.
He... the dude has my heart.
Not just because of his music but because of the fabric of him.
This dude means so much to me, bro.
He’s really, like...
...integral to my life.
Not just the music but just as a person, like,
just a big, big chunk of my... my life.
(chuckles): God.
But the music, too. Yeah, the music, too.
DENNIS: The highest moment...
...if I look back...
...is probably him going to rehab.
To know that I could’ve, like,
lost... lost him, you know what I mean?
It wasn’t like a...
a moment of happiness at all,
but looking back, it was like, man, I’m so glad that...
...he went when he did
and not a... not a minute later.
CUDI: I wasn’t the best me I could be.
We sometimes have that in our lives, you know?
And these are things that I touched on in rehab.
I talked about could’ve did this way better,
I could’ve been there,
or I could’ve understood, I could’ve not been afraid.
I realize that a lot of what I was dealing with
was because I was always working.
And I wasn’t giving myself the time to live my life.
And I told myself
that I was going to pace myself with this shit.
I’m in such a happier place, and I feel
like I can talk about certain things,
and I’ve come to terms with my bullshit.
I faced my bullshit.
I know where I went wrong.
There’s no confusion about it.
So now I can talk about it.
And knowing that I’m at a better place with me,
with Scott, that I love myself, that I’m happy.
I just hope the fans
can see that, like, I finally
am at a better place.
♪ ♪
KANYE: ♪ Beautiful mornin’ ♪
♪ You’re the sun in my mornin’, babe ♪
♪ Nothing unwanted ♪
Okay, L.A.
Now, Kid Cudi is in rehab right now,
but he’s got a number one song on the radio.
(cheering)
And I want us to sing it tonight,
loud enough for... for him to hear it and feel it and know we love him.
Y’all ready?
♪ Beautiful mornin’ ♪
AUDIENCE: ♪ You’re the sun in my mornin’, babe ♪
♪ Nothing unwanted... ♪
DR. NORCOTT: Feeling lost is okay.
Everybody should feel lost.
No one has our purpose figured out.
And you can use the time of feeling lost and reframe it to say you’re exploring.
A lot of healing is about changing your perception,
and a lot of the work towards recovery is about
changing your perception of what you’re experiencing
and knowing that you can feel lost with other people.
So...
CUDI: I had just got out of rehab,
and I knew there was a lot of excitement about me coming home.
I was just really nervous.
And hoped to God
the kids still want to hear me.
Los Angeles, make some motherfucking noise.
(cheering)
Yo, right now I’m fucking fanning out.
I’m fucking fanning out.
This is, like, my favorite artist of all time.
(cheering)
I don’t know how many motherfuckers out here
feel the same, but I grew up on this motherfucker right here.
So make some motherfucking noise for Kid Cudi!
-("Pursuit of Happiness" playing) -(cheering)
CUDI: I love you, motherfuckers!
The fans--
seeing the love, the excitement.
People were just so excited that I was home
and that I had made it.
Now, listen.
I missed every single one of you.
I love every single one of you.
I know life is crazy and shit, and shit comes our way,
but we can get through this shit.
We can make it through.
I am living proof. I am living proof.
And I don’t mean to preach, I don’t mean to preach...
...but I just need you to know, I need you to know one thing.
Listen.
♪ I’m on the pursuit of happiness, and I know ♪
♪ Everything that shine ain’t always gonna be gold, hey ♪
♪ I’ll be fine once I get it, yeah, what? ♪
♪ I’ll be good. ♪
It brought me back a little bit...
...into the light.
It was, like, it helped during that time.
♪ ♪
PAT: But when he came out of rehab, we just would cook.
Like, just go in the studio and work on music.
And that led into Kids See Ghosts.
And whether he was making beats with me or whether it was just him and Dot,
he just kept making and creating.
I don’t know if I would’ve dropped an album anytime soon.
I think I would’ve taken a couple years off.
But then Kanye, uh,
told me that he wanted to do this album,
and...
I was like, "Well, shit, this is cool, because...
now I have somebody lifting me up."
You know?
Letting me know that I can do this shit.
("Reborn" by Kids See Ghosts playing)
So Kanye doesn’t know that, but he saved me.
He saved me from being depressed
all over again about where I was at with the music, and...
he helped me see that, like, no, no, I’m not done yet.
♪ I’m so, I’m so reborn ♪
♪ I’m movin’ forward ♪
♪ Ain’t no stress on me, Lord ♪
♪ I’m movin’ forward ♪
♪ Keep movin’ forward, keep movin’ forward... ♪
I just have no desire to make any more dark records.
♪ I’m movin’ forward... ♪
I don’t want to put more of that out into the world.
I hope people... got it when I put it out,
when I did it, but that chapter is done.
♪ Keep movin’ forward, keep movin’ forward. ♪
(cheering)
I recognized early on that
to be able to do music was such a special thing,
and it was a gift from God.
I knew that I had to use this gift,
this power that I had, for good.
So, listen, I just want to say,
before I go into this next jam,
I really appreciate each and every one of you
from the front to the motherfucking back that came here to see me rock right now.
Life is crazy, man. We all figuring this shit out.
It’s fucked-up, but we’ll survive.
We’re all survivors.
I like to think Kid Cudi fans are fucking survivors.
(cheering)
It’s been a long ride
since my mixtape, and you guys have been so supportive
in dealing with me all these years.
-MAN: I love you, Scott! -MAN 2: We love you!
And to come to the show tonight, to see all the beautiful faces
in the building, all the love, is just...
it’s still overwhelming to me, after all these years.
I just really want to let you guys know, you know,
when I was going through my shit, I really appreciated
that you guys never turned your back on me,
you never judged me, you never left me hanging,
and I could come out here and see all this love...
(crowd cheering)
...from albums I dropped a year ago or two years ago or three years ago.
I mean, the shit is insane.
I know I’m helping you guys, but guess what--
you guys are helping me more than you know.
This shit is like group therapy.
It’s amazing.
(cheering)
I knew that that was my mission.
I knew that that’s why I was born.
It’s my destiny.
Everything I make has to help people in some way.
Like, it has to.
I can’t make music any other way.
And that’s always been the goal--
like, to inspire others...
...so they can tell their story.
I felt like the rap game needed more of that.
Now it’s like...
you can’t get a deal
unless you sing and talk about your emotions.
And we single-handedly infected the industry with that shit
in 2009.
It sent a ripple effect through the whole entire industry for a decade.
So...
you’re welcome.
(laughing)
("Freeee (Ghost Town, Pt. 2)" by Kids See Ghosts playing)
♪ I don’t feel pain anymore ♪
♪ Guess what, babe ♪
♪ I am free ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ Nothin’ hurts me anymore ♪
♪ Guess what, babe ♪
♪ I am free... ♪
(song fades)
So, the ten-year anniversary of my first album.
(cheering)
It’s a beautiful journey we’ve all been on this whole time, huh?
(cheering)
I love y’all motherfuckers, too.
Let me see this tattoo right here.
MAN: Mr. Rager! I got it! I got a tattoo!
I fucking love you, Cudi!
-CUDI: Oh, fucking fire. -You saved my life, Cudi!
Can you sign my arm? Please, please!
-All right, I’ll sign your arm. -Please sign my arm.
(crowd exclaiming)
MAN: Oh, my God! Oh, my God!
Oh, fuck!
There you go. What’s your name?
You saved my life. My name’s Jacob.
I fucking love you.
(laughs) I love you, too, Jacob.
Make some noise for Jacob, y’all. Yeah!
(cheering)
So, look, Jacob.
This next song is for you, all right?
I’m gonna... I’m gonna be checking
and making sure you’re raging your fucking face off.
All right, you ready for this next one?
-Let’s do it. -("Pursuit of Happiness" playing)
-(cheering) -(Jacob shouting)
I fucking love you!
You ready? You gonna sing it with me?
Yeah.
♪ Crush a bit, little bit, roll it up, take a hit ♪
♪ Feeling lit, feeling right, 2:00 a.m., summer night ♪
♪ I don’t care, hand on the wheel ♪
♪ Driving drunk, I’m doing my thing ♪
♪ Rolling the Midwest side and out ♪
♪ Living my life, getting out dreams ♪
♪ I’m-a do just what I want ♪
♪ Looking ahead, no turning back ♪
♪ People told me slow my roll, I’m screaming out ♪
♪ "Fuck that," I’m screaming out, "Fuck that" ♪
♪ I’m screaming out, "Fuck that, fuck that ♪
-♪ Fuck that, fuck that, fuck that" ♪ -♪ Yeah ♪
♪ ♪
(cheering)
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ What? What? What? ♪
♪ What? What? What? What? ♪
Yeah, Jacob, yeah!
♪ Tell me what you know about dreaming, dreaming ♪
♪ You don’t really know about nothin’, nothin’ ♪
♪ Tell me what you know about them night terrors every night ♪
♪ 5:00 a.m. cold sweats, waking up to the sky ♪
♪ Hey ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ I’m on the pursuit of happiness, and I know ♪
♪ Everything that shine ain’t always gonna be gold, hey ♪
♪ I’ll be fine once I get it ♪
♪ I’ll be good ♪
♪ I’m on the pursuit of happiness, and I know ♪
♪ Everything that shine ain’t always gonna be gold, hey ♪
♪ I’ll be fine once I get it ♪
♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah... ♪
ComplexCon! Yes!
Yes!
What the fuck?! Make some noise!
♪ Yeah, yeah ♪
Yeah!
♪ ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
Yeah!
I love you motherfuckers. Yes!
I love you! Get home safe!
Jacob, I love you.
Get home safe.
(echoing): Yes. Yes.
-Peace. -(song ends)
(cheering)