How to make it in America

In an effort to start this post off on the right foot i won’t use the pretentious opener “I was having some work done on my home” that i previously planned. Keeping it one hunnid, I was attempting to simultaneously open a bag of Doritos and send a text message which resulted in me dropping and shattering my relatively new iPhone 3g. Too busy (read. lazy) to actually leave my home, I paid a kid some extra dough to actually come to my home and fix it for me. (Eff sending it to Apple, the hood takes care of its own). I explained to him that we really had to expedite the home refurbishing session as i had to make it to my homeboy’s album release party. “Oh you know Cudi’s album came out today too” he shot back with some air of superiority as whoever i was planning on visiting couldn’t hold a urine soaked candle to the crowned prince of teenage angst. “Thats who’s party im going to” I said holding back the condescending smirk like a stutterer trying to make his way flawlessly to the end of a sentence. The audible gasp is what told me that Cudi’s name was one to be reckoned with.

I really started on a chilly night in NYC back in 2007. I had been working with Fool’s Gold Records on putting a holiday party for 10 Deep so i went to support a CMJ Showcase that they were holding in the city. On the showcase roster were Kid Sister who already had a single buzzing and some dude named Kid Cudi who i was one hundred percent sure I had not heard of nor would I care about. To save my ears the hassle of hearing some new electronic cannon fodder and having to politely give a nebulous review of his new signee when asked by A-trak, I decided to show up fashionably late for the event. “How was your new artist? oh, i rolled in late and i didn’t even get a chance to hear him, whoops!”

As I strolled in too late to be considered fashionable, Im greeted by Nick Catchdubs, “We’re starting late, but you’re just in time to hear Cudi!”

Fuck!
Plan Foiled.

It seemed like the crowd, who had really just showed up ready to rave to the electro/disco stylings of DJs A-trak and Mehdi who were headlining the showcase, was in the same state of abject apathy as I was with the prospect of staring at some future has-been as he starts the stopwatch on his 15 minutes of fame.
Given a brief introduction, i see ushered on to the stage a nervous looking young black kid, his slight frame looking more like emaciated in a pair of slim jeans and a brown hoodie with the words “Plain Pat What Up” plastered on in the kind of typewriter scrawl that you see in ransom notes given to the wealthy parents of teenage debutantes.

Presented with the daunting task of performing in front of a group of E-rolling party monsters who’s disinterest was evident through heckles and drunken conversation, Cudi adeptly swayed through his abbreviated performance. By the end of his tenure on the stage the formerly belligerent crowd was mouthing their own erroneous renditions of the lyrics to “Day n’ Nite” along with Cudi as their hyperactive bandleader.

As Cudi exited the stage I swam through the sea of inebriated hipsters to make my way toward Cudi’s entorage of Plain Pat and Ferris Bueller as they exchanged congratulatory hi-fives and swigs from the vodka bottle perched at the edge of the table. “What up with this Cudi kid?” i asked Ferris replied with “You better get down now, this kid’s gonna be huge”. I glad i took his advice.

Congratulations to Kid Cudi on the release of his opus Man on the Moon:End of Day its crazy to have seen someone go from struggle to success and humbling to have helped with the process.

September 18, 2009