You can call him ‘Moonman’…

KiD CuDi's first LP.

According to A-Trak’s twitter, Man On The Moon: The End of Day is “a zone-out record… with big hooks.” One could not garner a better assessment of CuDi’s debut LP. Man On The Moon is in league with Lil Wayne’s series of mixtapes as one of the stoniest records that I have ever heard. The best tracks on the record are backed by a variety of producers including Ratatat, Kanye West, Emile, and Plain Pat — some of the same folks CuDi has been working with since the beginning of his musical career. While the tempo and mood on each track varies by producer, it is obvious that CuDi himself played a large part in the production process.

As one can see from the above video, CuDi’s star-power is in full effect, track after track, but unlike other hip-hop records who gratuitously add guest artists, ‘Moonman’ features new guests sparingly and strategically. Aside from soon-to-be-TNC-hit, “Make Her Say” featuring Kanye and Common, MGMT helps to sing the hook on “Pursuit of Happiness,” one of the two tracks produced by guitarist and producer Ratatat. Elsewhere on the album Chip Tha Ripper, one of CuDi’s friends from Cleveland, raps over a mediocre beat on “Hyyerr”. The presence of Ratatat and MGMT on the album helps to attract and retain fans from the indie world while Chip Tha Ripper’s harsh rhymes give the album some much-needed street credibility.

The lack of guest appearances, on the other hand, allows the audience to focus on the artist in question: KiD CuDi. As a man who has achieved astronomical popularity based on one single, “Day ‘N’ Nite”, and a few virally-released mixtapes, the pressure for the Cleveland KiD to release a studio LP matching in quality has been mounting. It is clear that these entertainment industry expectations have weighed on CuDI and helped him craft an album that draws heavily on images of  dreams, night terrors, and the fear of failure. In “Soundtrack 2 My Life”, an ode to the creative influences floating around the mind, CuDi raps, “Tell me what you know about dreams/ tell me what you know about night terrors, nothing/ you don’t really care about the trials of tomorrow/ rather lay awake in the bed full of sorrow”. Another track that has been floating around the blogosphere for quite some time, “Sky Might Fall”, is filled with wordplay and metaphoric language; in it we find CuDi analyzing (from another universe) the question “why are we here?” In “Pursuit of Happiness” he contemplates the importance or irrelevance of success in the grand scheme of things.

The closing track on the album, “Up, Up & Away”, is produced by Free School. An up-tempo and simple acoustic riff is utilized for an uplifting finale to the LP in which we hear CuDi confront his demons. The hook, “I’ll be up, up and away/ up, up and away/ because in the end they’ll judge me anyway/ so, whatever,” lets the audience know, KiD CuDi will continue to soar upwards as hip-hop’s Moonman.
-KiD CuDi’s “Man on the Moon: The End of Days” is set to be released September 15.

UPDATE: Listen to “Pursuit of Happiness feat. Ratatat and MGMT” here via Flavorwire.