Scott Mescudi (Kid Cudi)

Kid Cudi is one of the most talented hip hop artists today, recently genres have wandered away from quality music and talent to stuff that every artist is releasing just for a shot at getting on a mainstream radio. Although Cudi has had a few of his songs be popular on mainstream radio stations, he is completely different than other artists. He has a broad range of talent and his lyrics actually show emotion and tell a story of his troubles.

Cudi's gradeschool yearbook picture

Scott Mescudi was born on the 30th of January in 1984 in Cleveland, Ohio. He grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio. His dad was a house painter, and an Air Force Veteran in World War II, his mother a middle school choir teacher. His father passed away from cancer when Scott was 11 years old. Scott got his GED and went to University of Toledo to study film but dropped out of college after a year.

By the end of high school he was inspired by groups such as The Pharcyde and A Tribe Called Quest to start rapping and to get involved with music. After dropping out of university he moved to New York and began to pursue a career in music. In mid 2008 he released his first mixtape that he recorded with Plain Pat and Emile Haynie. The mixtape was released to the public for free download and caught the attention of Kanye West a short while after its release. Kanye then got him signed to G.O.O.D Music later on that year. Cudi has since released one other mixtape, two full length albums, started a side project titled WZRD with his friend Dot Da Genius, and starred in HBO's How To Make It In America.

Kid Cudi has many emotions and he's not afraid to let them shine in his music, he went through two tragic deaths of family members he was close to. His father died of cancer when he was just a kid and his uncle died of cancer also just as he was starting his career as a musician. This influenced the creativity in his music writing process, making most of his songs have a depressing eerie feeling to them. Which people respect because the lyrics are meaningful to him and not just a heap of words thrown together to make a hit song so they can get some money. Actually in 2009 Cudi almost quit music altogether because his label was trying to get him to do that exact thing and being a successful musician was to stressful and dramatic for him. He kept at it though because he didn't want to disappoint his many fans.

Today the music industry needs more artists like Kid Cudi so we don't lose all creativity in our music completely. Cudi's lyrics reach out to people with all sorts of self-conflicting problems, which I think people have a problem dealing with that sort of stuff a lot more now than they used to. Songs help people get through those problems, and those artist end up having a special place in those peoples hearts. If people would just listen to the thought put into Cudi's lyrics he would be so much more popular today.