CONTENTS

you’ll never see another Jay Z and you’ll never
see another Kanye, and the reason why is
because they are who they are. They’re not
emulating anyone. And it’s not that they told
me; I was just paying attention. I think that’s
why they have me around, because they know
I’m watching and I’m learning.
MC: What have you learned from them about
actually making music?
Kid Cudi: I learned how to make beats from
watching Dot [Dot da Genius], Emile, Plain Pat
and Kanye. I’ve combined everything I learned
from those four dudes and fused it and created
my own shit. So if I’m gonna sample some shit,
I’m like “Oh yeah, I remember Kanye sampled
it this way.” If I’m laying down drums, I’m like,
“I saw Dot lay down drums this way.” Or if I’m
gonna chop something up, I’m like, “I remember
how Plain Pat chopped this up,” because Pat
is the illest sample chopper, I don’t give a fuck
what anyone says. Between him and Emile
they got the craziest collection of records, it’s
ridiculous. And I understand why Kanye was like
“Oh yeah, Plain Pat? Let’s go!” Because he’s a
fucking genius, and he’s such a humble dude
so I’m gonna toot his horn because he would
never say these things. But he’s a genius and
someone I really look up to.
MC: How do you feel about “features”—
guesting on other artists’ records? Couldn’t
it dilute your own brand/identity?
Kid Cudi: Early on I did these [features] records
because the checks looked good, but I wasn’t
really feeling the features. After, I was like fuck
that, I’m not doing features just because they’re
giving me money; I don’t like these songs and
it doesn’t make me feel good. That’s not how I
wanna do things. And I’m really happy I made
the decision and now people say I never do
features. That’s what I want—a certain quality!
I’m not going to whore myself. When you think
about it, it’s like every time you do a feature with
another artist it’s like you’re sleeping together;
so it’s like everybody’s fucking each other, like
an orgy. That’s the way I look at it. It’s like the
neighborhood bicycle, everybody gets a free
ride. And it ends up being like, ugh, whatever.
MC: There’s also the opportunism aspect
of features. Jumping on somebody else’s
horse.
Kid Cudi: I’m not an opportunist, I’m not going
to be like, “Oh, that nigga is hot right now I need
to do a record with him so I can be relevant.”
My mind would never click to that channel. And
I’m no fool, I see a lot of these artists who do
that strategically, where they took all the niggas
that were in the top rotation and were like, “Ya’ll
niggas need to do a record.” But sometimes
that shit don’t work [and the records flop].
Sometimes it’s art over power. Indicud came
out and I did 140,000 [albums sold] and I had
no hot artist on it, nobody on it.
See, you need to stop trying to act like you
can read the consumer and manipulate people.
Just make the music. Make it real, make it
pure. People know. These kids aren’t stupid. I
know people who don’t even listen to the radio
anymore. They turn to the Internet to hear the
music they want to hear and they stand by
it. The only people who are subjected to the
radio nowadays are kids getting picked up
from school by their parents. They’re still the
teenyboppers who beg their parents to “buy me
this album!”
MC: How old do you think they need to be to
understand Kid Cudi?
Kid Cudi: It’s interesting, sometimes I got
13-year-olds who want to come to my show
and just get it. They’re like the kids that walked
around my school with Pink Floyd shirts on. We
were like 15, and I was like, “What the fuck is
Pink Floyd?” It’d be like some stoner white kids
whose parents got them into it and they’d be like.
[In white stoner accent] “Dude, you don’t even
know.” And I was like you’re just a stoner kid; you
probably drop acid and hang with the burnouts,
whatever. It took me a decade to finally find out
what Pink Floyd was! But it’s crazy, because right
now, there’s a 15-year-old kid at school wearing a
Kid Cudi t-shirt and there’s somebody looking at
him like, “What the fuck?”
MC: The Crookers’ remix of “Day ‘n’ Night” is
genre-bending; do you see yourself making
more EDM?
Kid Cudi: A-Trak chose to have the Crookers
remix “Day ‘n’ Night.” He’s responsible for it.
He asked me to do it and I said I didn’t know.
I immediately thought of Abercrombie &
Fitch techno, and I had no knowledge of this
[EDM] world other than I trusted his judgment.
Then I did research on the Crookers and
thought, this could be a big thing. That fusion,
singlehandedly changed everything, it was like
the Big Bang. And from there people just got
on board and raped it, and raped it so hard it’s
corny now; it’s like I will never want to make
another song that sounds like that ever. I’m
always moving, you gotta be if you’re a leader.
You gotta move into the uncharted.
MC: There is also much anticipation for
another MOTM (Man on the Moon: The End of
Day) record. What can we expect from that?
Kid Cudi: Man on the Moon III will show a
whole other level of maturity, and it will answer
a whole lot of questions. There’s a lot of missing
links between MOTM and MOTM II. I also think
that they were both very ignorant albums, so I
38 November 2013 musicconnection.com