Album Review: Man on the Moon, Vol. 2: The Legend of Mr. Rager by Kid Cudi

He’s seven foot tall, [b]Mr Rager[/b], or that’s how you picture him: an imposing figure in jungle explorer’s suit and backpack. “[i]Mr Rager, tell me some of your stories[/i],” Kid Cudi asks this mysterious anti-hero on the track that bears his name; “[i]I’m off on an adventure[/i],” comes the warped, enigmatic reply. “[i]Can we tag along?[/i]” Cudi pleads.

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Review Summary: The rise and the fall and the rise of Scott Mescudi, as told by Kid Cudi.I can't help but feel a certain sense of disappointment in Kid Cudi, and it doesn't have as much to do with the album The Legend Of Mr. Rager as it does with the fact that the way I perceived Scott Mescudi the person has been shattered in light of his recent choices. I'm not one to care so much about the lifestyles of musicians as long as the music is good - especially with rappers, whom I relate to less as a rule - but his first album seemed to me a singular event in the world of hip-hop.

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Structured as a five-act show with interludes, narrated by Common, and featuring guest spots from indie and hip-hop royalty, Kid Cudi’s debut, Man on the Moon: The End of Day, was an audacious and idea-driven introduction to the stoner savant’s brand of leftfield hip-hop. All the more ironic, then, that one of its most memorable tracks was the Gaga-sampling “Make Her Say,” a crass but clever posse cut which wasn’t the least bit trippy or metaphysical—just three guys swapping sex jokes over a sample from the acoustic version of “Poker Face. ” One-off or not, you might think that the song’s success would have taught Cudi something about how to integrate his oddball aesthetic into the mainstream: Dial down the theatrical moping, show more generosity of hooks and humor, and maybe settle for expanding hip-hop’s borders rather than aiming to reinvent the genre in one go.

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Kanye West has repeatedly called kiD CuDi his "favorite living artist" ("and not just cause he's on my label," he assured us on Twitter). CyHi Da Prince excepted, West's taste in musicians is usually sound, and CuDi is talented. His taste for forlorn melody, chilly electronics, and empty space basically brought 808s and Heartbreak into existence, and his fingerprints are visible all over Kanye's upcoming My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

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In Roger Ebert’s “Glossary of Movie Terms”, he defines a sequel as “a filmed deal”. Music isn’t film, but the definition still applies. With music, though, the deal is most often between the artist and the audience or the artist and the artist himself. Hip-hop musicians in particular tend to frame albums as sequels to capture some of the cache or success of the original work.

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KID CUDI “Man on the Moon II:. The Legend of Mr. Rager”.

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A disappointing sequel despite Cudi’s innovative tendencies. Greg Cochrane 2010 In the often macho world of hip hop, Kid Cudi stands as a strange customer. The 26-year-old Cleveland rapper is, to all intents and purposes, an introverted gawky, geek. Having seen Kanye West open all the genre's dorm-doors with The College Dropout half a decade ago he set about chiseling his debut album Man on the Moon: The End of Day (2009).

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