New Kid on the Block
Kid Cudi is part of the new crop of younger MCs, including Asher Roth, Charles Hamilton, Bobby Ray, Mickey Factz and Wale, who are striving to bring lyricism and quality production back to the forefront. As a Kanye West protégé, he’s making a strong start.
In His Dreams
Man on the Moon: End of Day is a smooth, melodic respite from the hard-charging party sounds that have dominated radio and Internet for the past five years. Cudi has chosen a style of calm introspection where themes of loneliness, loss of his father, and seeking solace through music, largely define his content. What he lacks in sly wit, he makes up for in emotional candor. Common underscores these sentiments with his spoken word comments at several intervals on the album, the first at the close of “In My Dreams,” he says, “…a voice who spoke of vulnerabilities and other human emotions and issues never before heard so vividly and honest."
The West Factor
The album has some slow moments where one song seems to fade into the other without much difference. On “Solo Dolo,” he quips, “I don't have nobody/But what I might feel are the sounds of sanity/Hoping what I hear, loops itself continuously.” It’s a sound reminiscent of 808s and Heartbreak, sans the hard, continuous thump of West’s titular drum program and the much maligned Auto-Tune.
In His Zone
For the most part, the album is a cohesive collection with a distinctive ebb and flow of Cudi’s state of mind on each track. The alienation of “Solo Dolo” melds into “Heart of a Lion,” where the MC confronts conflicting emotions in a wish to rise above the lows of the latter track. The following and largely popular “Day N Nite” is a refreshingly upbeat lift. “Enter Galactic (Love Connection 1)” is a dreamy song about the pursuit of one’s love interest. Cudi quips, “If you can’t do what you imagine, then what is imagination to you.” At the end of the song, Common arrives once again to tell us that Cudi’s peaceful sanctuary “is his new home.”
Clearly out of place is the raunchy “Make Her Say.” The track is a single-entendre built on a sample of Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face.” It was literally titled “Poke Her Face” in its Internet leak several months ago. Common and Kanye join in on what starts as comic relief and ends as a nasty imploration for women to be sexually compliant automatons. Common is the worst offender with “B*tch, you should do it for the love like Ray J” and “get up on this conscious d***.” His lyrics are not only disgusting, but blatant contradictions to his interludes about self-awareness and leadership.
The Bottom Line on Man on the Moon: End of the Day
Fortunately Cudi gets back on point with “The Pursuit of Happiness.” Also, “Hyyerr” is a mildly amusing bit on achieving an elevated mind state through natural and substance assisted means. Overall, Man on the Moon: End of Day is a pleasant ride – a little somber but much more accessible than his mentor’s last album. Indeed, it would not be a stretch to say Man on the Moon is the album that 808s and Heartbreak could have been.
Top Tracks:- "Solo Dolo"
- "Enter Galactic" (Love Connection Part 1)
- "Day N Nite"
- "My World"
