Kid Cudi
Cleveland-born rapper and singer whose MySpace-launched single “Day ’n’ Nite” reached No. 3 and whose 2009 debut “Man on the Moon: The End of Day” went four times platinum.
Origins
Kid Cudi was born Scott Ramon Seguro Mescudi on January 30, 1984, in Cleveland, Ohio, and grew up in the suburbs of Shaker Heights and Solon. In 2005 he left Cleveland for New York City to pursue music, first staying in the South Bronx with his uncle, the jazz drummer Kalil Madi. In New York he recorded “Day ’n’ Nite”, a song produced by Dot da Genius.
Breakthrough
Cudi posted “Day ’n’ Nite” on MySpace, where producer Emile Haynie found it. The song was issued as a single through A-Trak’s Fool’s Gold Records in February 2008. On July 17, 2008, Cudi released the mixtape “A Kid Named Cudi” with the streetwear brand 10.Deep and Fool’s Gold, with Plain Pat and Emile Haynie overseeing production. Plain Pat, then working as Kanye West’s A&R, introduced West to Cudi’s music. West brought him in to work on “808s & Heartbreak” (2008), where Cudi received writing or vocal credits on “Heartless”, “Welcome to Heartbreak”, “Paranoid” and “RoboCop”, and signed him to GOOD Music later that year.
Key records
“Day ’n’ Nite” reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was later certified diamond by the RIAA. Cudi’s debut album, “Man on the Moon: The End of Day”, was released on September 15, 2009, through Dream On, GOOD Music and Universal Motown. It debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 with 104,000 copies sold and was certified four times platinum in 2022. “Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager” (2010) was certified platinum. In 2011 he founded his own label, Wicked Awesome Records, and in 2013 he left GOOD Music.
Later career and legacy
Cudi reunited with West as the duo Kids See Ghosts, releasing a self-titled album on June 8, 2018. In 2020 “The Scotts”, his collaboration with Travis Scott, became his first song to reach No. 1 on the Hot 100, and “Man on the Moon III: The Chosen” debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 that December. He has won two Grammy Awards. The “Man on the Moon” series, built around hummed melodies, sung hooks and themes of loneliness and night terrors, remains the core of his catalog, and he is one of several Cleveland artists, alongside Bone Thugs-n-Harmony and MGK, to top the Billboard 200 or Hot 100.
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