I wonder if Dolly Parton ever sings “I Will Always Love You” anymore. Whitney Houston (may she Rest In Peace) covered the “Jolene” single in 1992 for “The Bodyguard” soundtrack. For the sake of this review, Dolly Parton is Kid Cudi. Whitney Houston? Now that’s Travis Scott.
Kid Cudi is absolutely responsible for the sound of hip-hop and R&B today. Kid Cudi’s became the new mainstream. Every artist is moody. All artists now are living in this medium between singing and rapping. It’s rhythmic, it’s guttural, it’s angsty. It’s Cudi
How do you not hear that influence in all the music of today? It’s too many artists to point to because, well, it’s all of them. He created this sound. However, he couldn’t copyright it. McDowell’s, McDonald’s… who can tell anymore? I think a lot about Iambic Pentameter and how we learn it through Shakespeare. I don’t know if he made it but he connect that style to him. I’m sure the creator is pissed. “He stole my whole fucking flow. Line for Line, Bar for Bar” Soulja Boy.One more quote for you. “it's not about who did it first it's about who did it right.” (S/O Drake). How do you keep your sound your own? I don’t know but I do know that like Whitney making “I Will Always Love You” hers, Travi$ $cott made this sound his. And it makes this listening to MOTM III a bittersweet experience.
This album is brilliant.
The third (and potentially final) installment to his Man On The Moon series, is an 18-song hour-long deep dive into existential crisis. The album is broken into 4 acts: Return to Madness, The Rager The Menace, Heart of Rose Gold, & Powers. 11 years after his debut album, Kid Cudi doesn’t provide any answers. He still is haunted by the same things he was haunted by when he first arrived over a decade ago. “Gotta Take A Minute, y’all, traveled far / Feeling something, no. Can’t ignore My Instinct / Back just where I started, it’s the same old damaged song / It’s the shit I need.” (Tequila Shots). Maybe that’s fitting. How many of us thought that we would get the answers when we got older? We get older and realize that we don’t know shit about shit. We’re still just as detached and isolated as before. Given the current state of the world as it relates to the COVID-19 Pandemic, maybe we’re more isolated and detached than ever before. Cudi is at the same time yearning to be free of his demons while waxing poetic about them. This entanglement (no Jada) is all embodied in Cudi’s alter-ego Mr. Rager. And throughout the acts of the album, the pendulum swings between chasing vices and chasing atonement. From deflating introspective songs like “Mr. Solo Dolo III” to the triumphant confidence displayed on the standout “Show Out” (featuring Skepta and Pop Smoke) Cudi brings us on a journey yet again through all of the feels. This album captures our propensity to fail as well as it’s cyclical nature. It’s our desire to want to do better, our failure to do better, and our attempt to analysis our failures. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
Its equal parts rigid and fluid. It’s about fucking bitches again and it’s about trying to not fuck up again. Yet, it still feels at times, like a copy. This album isn’t an impersonation, but to the untrained eye McDowell’s and McDonald’s both have golden arches. In his attempt to reintroduce himself, he also reminds us of how much this sound has moved on without him. This album reminds me how far artists like Lil Yacthy, Juice WRLD (rip), Future, Playboi Carti, Rich The Kid, Lil Uzi Vert, Post Malone, XXXTentacion, and many other artists have commercialized his sound (and maybe bastardized it to an extent.) It’s impossible to ignore the Will-Smith-In-Gemini-Man effect this album undoubtedly carries. Travis Scott is the new king of the 4-square court, even if Cudi etched the lines in chalk himself,
Man On The Moon III carries a depth and an urgency unseen in his previous projects. This is an album about closure without actually getting closure. A war that started with Cudi ever wondering if things would get better… wages on with the realization that it probably won’t. And there is a particular joy – particular humor- to that. The joy isn’t at the destination (nor was it ever there), the joy manifests itself throughout the journey. In an album where he is trying to center himself around his joy and face his demons yet again, the listener is forced to do the same. Same Old Song, right? I’m sure Whitney Houston will sound better singing it.
I give “Man On The Moon III” 8 rescheduled therapy sessions out of 10.