Album review: Kid Cudi, 'Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager'
3.5 stars (out of 4)
“Man on the Moon: The End of Day,” the 2009 debut album by Scott Ramon Segring Mescudi, a k a Kid Cudi, presented the Cleveland rapper came as the hip-hop answer to Pink Floyd, a lonely stoner adrift on the dark side of the moon. On the sequel, “Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager” (G.O.O.D./Universal Motown), Cudi crooned a bit, rapped a little more, and oozed dazed melancholy, if not despair. As hip-hop existentialists go, Cudi had the top tier all to himself.
Though Kanye West (on his 2008 album, “808’s and Heartbreak”) and Drake also can play the brooding loner pretty persuasively, Cudi takes the persona several steps further on “Man on the Moon II.” The five-part narrative follows a character who tries to act like the hip-hop star he has become. So he plunges into a world of bravado and after-parties, with their endless supply of drugs and women. The music struts (and flirts with crossover acceptance, ala OutKast or West); it flashes rock guitars (“Erase Me,” “Mr. Rager”) and samples indie-rock queen St. Vincent (“Maniac”).
But the decadence collapses into a Gothic house of mirrors in which keyboards toll and strings send shivers, while Cudi slurs and murmurs about “so much liquor in my liver” and contemplates his death. As dire as that sounds, the music is as consuming and intoxicating as the lifestyle Cudi describes. On two albums, the stoned-and-alone rapper has created a world built for one.
greg@gregkot.com