Kid Cudi’s man on the moon trilogy collage. graphic by Nick Neuhalfen
On December 11th, 2020, Kid Cudi released his long-awaited Man on the Moon III, which cemented the artist’s trilogy of albums as one of music’s greatest and most influential of all time.
On December 11th, 2020, Kid Cudi dropped his first solo album since 2016 with his long-awaited third release of his Man on the Moon trilogy: Man On The Moon III: The Chosen. This drop came a little over 11 years after Cudi’s debut album Man On The Moon: The End of Day, and ten years after his sophomore album Man On The Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager. For those who are not as familiar with Cudi’s music, MOTM3 (Man On The Moon III) would have been their first real insight into Cudi’s music, besides, of course, mainstream hits such as “Pursuit of Happiness,” “Day n’ Nite,” “Memories,” and “Erase Me.” MOTM3 ended up debuting at number two on the US Billboard 200, with 144,000 sales in its first week, tying Cudi’s 2013 release, Indicud, for his highest-charting album at number two. Despite the success of MOTM3, it is only a small piece of hip-hop’s greatest trilogy.
To get a better look into the influence and talent exhibited through Scott Mescudi’s (Kid Cudi’s) Man On The Moon trilogy, we must go back to the release of the first Man On The Moon album, which thrust Kid Cudi into stardom, ultimately changing hip-hop forever. The magnitude of Cudi’s influence through Man On The Moon on all levels, not just hip-hop, is very rarely talked about. Before the release of MOTM, rappers and hip-hop artists in general rarely touched on subjects such as mental illness, heartbreak, and self-reflection the way Cudi did, which ended up having an impact on not just hip-hop, but music and pop culture in general. As Chicago rapper Common puts it in his narration at the end of “In My Dreams,” Cudi on MOTM acted as “a voice who spoke of vulnerabilities and other human emotions and issues never before heard so vividly and honest.” Cudi made it acceptable to show emotions in a society where being emotional as a man, especially a black man, was highly frowned upon. His MOTM trilogy, MOTM1 especially, acted as a beacon of hope for those who felt lost in life and cemented Cudi as a leader of younger generations struggling to find their way.
While I, like Travis Scott, Timothée Chalamet, and Pete Davison, credit Cudi and the release of MOTM with saving my life and giving me a sense of direction and love even in my darkest moments, the sound of the MOTM trilogy may be even more influential than the subject matter. Before the release of 808s and Heartbreak by Kanye West in 2008 and Man On The Moon in 2009, hip hop was relatively always fast-paced, drum and sample-driven, and rarely ventured into other genres such as rock and alternative; this all changed thanks to MOTM, hip-hop’s first alternative, psychedelia album. Cudi was one of the first hip-hop artists to experiment with vocal harmonizing and abstract melodies such as humming and singing. Before him, all melodies and harmonics came from the instruments or a rapper’s flow, but nobody had yet ventured into using their own voice as their main instrument, and he did all this with little to no autotune.
The concepts and artistic detail exhibited through the trilogy are another two of the biggest contributors to its greatness. On the first MOTM, the instrumentals and production are almost completely opposite the lyrics and subject matter to show how on the surface one might seem bright and happy, while on the inside they are full of pain and turmoil. On MOTM2, Cudi used a much darker sound, full of electric guitar and rock influence, with even darker lyrics surrounding death and addiction. The first MOTM was Cudi showing all aspects of his life, good and bad, but on MOTM2 it is as if all the light has been sucked out and Cudi’s music is a perfect representation of this. I would even venture to say that the soundscapes on MOTM2 were even more influential than those on MOTM1. Without the darkness of MOTM2, we would not have albums such as Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight by Scott, Luv Is Rage 2 by Lil Uzi Vert, Beauty Behind the Madness by The Weeknd, and many more.
However, Man On The Moon 3, Cudi’s most recent and final installment of the MOTM trilogy, did the complete opposite of what his first two albums did; he was influenced by the sounds he inspired. In the months leading up to MOTM3, Cudi dropped two singles, the first being “Leader of the Delinquents,” which took many Cudi fans by surprise with its faster, more bass-driven sound. His second was a collaboration song with his former prodigy, Travis Scott. Neither song was bad; they had a different sound, which is sometimes hard to deal with when you have fallen in love with a specific sound.
When Cudi dropped the first of two MOTM3 trailers, I was ecstatic. There was no better time for Cudi to return with another album than 2020, and on December 11th, the long-awaited MOTM3 finally dropped, and to be completely honest with you, I hated it at first. Of course, I stayed up until ten waiting for it to drop and then immediately listened to the whole album, but there was something about the first half that almost made me give up on listening and go to bed. I had to turn off my computer for a minute to try and regroup myself because I had never felt so let down in my life. It was not that it was bad; I had just spent the past two years anticipating an almost exact replica of either MOTM1 or 2, or more ideally, a complete mix of the two. Instead of allowing Cudi’s sound and music to progress and change, I was almost forcing him into a box and disallowing the one thing he stood for more than anything: personal expression. When I first listened to MOTM3, I thought that it sounded like he was ripping off Scott’s sound, but then I realized that Scott’s sound is Cudi’s sound. Was Cudi’s sound on MOTM more conventional than the rest of his discog? Yes, but not because he was ripping anyone off or trying to make an explosion in the industry, but because he enjoys the music he inspired and wanted to try his hand at it. Cudi was not making this album to sound mainstream, to “fit in” with a new generation of hip-hop, to widen his fanbase; he made this album because was happy and wanted to express that through his music, the same way he did on MOTM1 and 2. He had finally found himself on an inner level and was not being controlled by his depression, anxiety, addiction, or anything else he was fighting throughout his early career. Through the first two albums of his MOTM series, he inspired more than just a new generation of hip-hop artists, but a new generation of individuals, and it was about time Cudi was able to have some fun through his music.
Perhaps the most important influence of the MOTM trilogy is the story Cudi tells. Through all three MOTM albums, we saw the full journey of starting out in the world, to being lost and out of control, and finally to finding love in yourself and the world around you. No matter how incredible the music may be, nothing can compare to the personal impact Cudi’s MOTM trilogy has had, and will continue to have, on me and millions of others around the world. To quote Cudi himself on his anthem track “Man on the Moon,” “I be that man on the moon, I’m that man on the moon, and I’mma does what I do, so do you, hey-hey.”
