If you didn’t quote a Kid Cudi song in the tenth grade in your facebook status, I’m assuming you lived under a rock. Everyone goes through the “no one understands me” phase and Kid Cudi songs perfectly support adolescent angst.
The show included a lineup of newcomer Logic, and the evanescent self proclaimed “asshole”, role model- Tyler the Creator. Logic’s stage presence v.s. Tyler the Creators were different for obvious reasons. Logic is on the ‘come-up’ and Tyler the creator is already known. Logic is a 23 year old from Maryland and most of his hype is attributed to making the XXL Freshman class of 2013. His mixtape titled “Welcome to Forever: Young Sinatra”. In addition to his many successes this year is also signed a two million dollar deal with Def Jam a few months ago, so be on the look out in the future for his releases (because he has some serious talent). In contrast with Tyler the creator, Tyler is signed to an independent label. Many of his fans call him self-made because he produces his own beats and writes his own lyrics. Tyler the creator doesn’t wear Givenchy or Rick Owens clothing, as do most rappers in the game currently do. If you passed him on the street you would assume he was your average skateboarding rebellious adolescent. His confident persona may be a turnoff at first but it only attracted me to listen to more of his music. The stage was set up so that there were inflated balloons spelling out “Golf” (a shortened version of the title in of his crew). Because Tyler, the Creator is closer in age to the audience than Logic is he is seen as more relatable. The energy he delivered throughout his hour and change set got the crowd ready to see Kid Cudi.
Although most music critics define Kid Cudi’s music as rap, I would say it’s literally a plethora of “good sounding shit”. When the drape covering the stage fell and the smoke cleared, the stage had a space ship, a moon mountain and many UV lights- all accompanied by Kid Cudi wearing a space suit. He upholds his title as “man on the moon”. He played many songs from “A Kid Named Cudi” mixtape first which pays homage to his hometown, Cleveland. There was a shift in the mood when Kid Cudi played songs from the Man on the Moon series and Indicud. It wasn’t entirely serious but the audience, myself included was completely captivated, hanging onto every word and breath that he uttered. I guess one can fall for stoner charm given the right circumstances. Snap back to reality, Kid Cudi screamed “its party time” and in that moment King Chip (also known as chip tha rapper) came onto stage and performed “Just What I am” mashed up with “Pursuit of Happiness” and “Memories”. I felt as If I was in a trance.
The whole time I had my arms around my friends and we were screaming the lyrics word for word and jumping up and down (it amazes me how I could be perfectly coordinated doing that for 20 minutes but I can’t drink water without getting some of it down my shirt). The last song of his set was inevitably, the pursuit of happiness. He played the original version and the Steve Aoki remix. In the midst of his performance, the space ship began to light up, the projector illuminated stars onto the background of the spaceship and the air horns started to blow heavy steam. After all was said and done, he told the audience “good night” and the spaceship made a revving sound. Although there was not a roaring applause for Kid Cudi’s performance like you would see at most concerts after the main act is done, the silent head nod of approval is all you needed to confirm that the show was all you expected it to be.