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Photography by Phil Sharp for Loud And Quiet Magazine (Issue 25 vol. 3)
©2011 Phil Sharp - www.philsharp-photo.com

Wednesday night (Oct. 28) in NYC, Cudi hosted a listening party for his forthcoming album MOTM II as various industry insiders and media showed up to hear the follow up to Cudi’s freshman album. MTV’s Rap Fix attended the listening session but they also previously heard the album while interviewing Cudi:

Cudi stopped by the MTV News office on Tuesday to talk about his much-anticipated album, Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager. And before we even sat down to get started, he was really excited to play us his new album and each of the MTV News staff that listened was blown away to say the least.

Time Out NYC has a nice (but short) song by song recap along with a writeup of the event:

The Legend of Mr. Rager is darker than Man on the Moon. Not in an emo, hand-to-brow way; it’s less cinematic and generally bleaker, while also being far more danceable. It also firmly establishes Cudi as a singer-songwriter—not just a rapper with a knack for hooks.

PrefixMag.com:

There was a cloak of literal darkness about the bar hosting the secret listening party for Cudi’s upcoming sophomore album, Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager. The venue looked like another world, dimly lit, cloudy, and blanketed by a network of green laser lights. The man himself entered the building with sunglasses on, sporting a Freddy Krueger glove. Cudi sang and danced like a man possessed as the album blasted out of the venue’s speakers. He is clearly proud of what he has done.

The night was kicked off by Cudi as he told the crowd, “I want everybody to focus and listen to the jams. This is one of those albums that you just gotta listen too” At that point the music started and we were introduced to the Legend of Mr. Rager. The album starts off with one of the best songs on the record called “Scott Mescudi vs The World” featuring Cee-lo on a powerful hook and production by Emile (who contributed 9 songs to MOTM II).

Man on the Moon II is an amazing listen from start to finish as you immerse yourself in a new but familiar Cudi sound as he explores a darker side to his story. Each song has its own distinct sound that you’ll find yourself wanting to replay it over and over to fully understand his story and appreciate the subtle additions.

I won’t go into much detail on everything else since I feel like I would need a few listens to give an accurate overview of each song individually. It’s definitely worth reading the Time Out NY feature if your looking for a song by song breakdown.

Finishing off the album is the Dot Da Genius produced “Trapped in My Mind”, another stand out track from the album. Cudi ends the song and album in a semi-spoken tone as he explains – “I’m trapped in my mind baby, I don’t think I’ll ever get out”.

After the album was done playing, Cudi took to the mic to discuss a few topics. He thanked his fans for pre-ordering the album as both the deluxe (#1) and regular (#3) editions sit in the iTunes Top 10. Here’s a few select quotes:

“I never thought I could play an instrument, I down played that shit. If you think you can’t do something, don’t down play that shit. Now I pick up a guitar and I have a natural nack for it and I’m learning”

“The story is real, I come from this town. We really trying to make music for ya’ll on an everyday basis so ya’ll can get through your situation. I made this album for people to get through any problem they have. When I was growing up, I didn’t have songs like this. This is my motivation.”

Wrapping up the night Cudi added:

“I kind of used my self as a muse, to help people get through their problems. Thats kinda why the album is so dark, why the album is so honest. I’m happy ya’ll f*ck with it, I really am”

Timeout NY says “We can’t wait to hear the album again”, I’ll second that as Man on the Moon II is another stepping stone for Cudi and his music.

Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager is in stores Nov. 9
Pre-order your copy today from iTunes, Amazon and more!

I’m fairly selective about what I work on and who I work with simply because working full time leaves me little time for side projects. Regardless, when Marky and his team got in touch about working with him for this EP and his forthcoming website it was a no brainer for me. Marky’s working on some great music so when this EP releases next week make sure to give it a listen.

If your wondering, the writing in the book was actually hand written by Marky and then scanned and photoshopped onto the book.

Also created a hard copy of the EP for myself:

KidCudi.tv (www.datnewcudi.com/tv) is an addition to DatNewCudi.com in an effort to provide an archive & gallery of all Kid Cudi videos available. Organized by various categories such as song titles and year of performance, it’s ease of use should provide fans with a one stop solution for any video they may be looking for. Based off the WooThemes theme “WooTube”.

So far the reception has been favourable with the video archive adding a daily increase of 15-20% in pageviews to DatNewCudi.com since it’s launch March 14.

VISIT: KiDCudi.TV

While in Vancouver last week Kid Cudi performed 5 shows in 3 nights! I managed to attend them all but only film the final solo show on Friday night at the Commodore. Tons more video below as you can watch almost the entire 60 minute set.

Better late than never, right? A few months back A-Trak and his 10,000lb Hamburger tour stopped in Vancouver at VENUE Live for a show. Here’s a quick 2 minute recap. Filmed and edited in HD.

In part 2 of my interview with Dot Da Genius we continue where we left off and also dive into discussion about his production/multimedia company HeadBanga Muzik and why its important to control your media. We also talk about hats in store for HeadBanga Musik, what he’s working on and a brief tour of the studio. Big thanks goes out to the entire HeadBanga family for helping put this together especially Eva for organizing it and Jr. for filming it.

While I was in NYC, I stopped by Dot Da Genius’s new Brooklyn based studio “The Brewery” to catch up and see what the producer behind the now platinum single “Day ‘n’ Nite” is up too. In part 1 of the interview you’ll get a brief intro to Dot Da Genius and his new Head Banga Muzik Studio. We talk about his relationship with Cudi and how “Day ‘n’ Nite” and “Dat New New” came to be, how the world has embraced their song and how that has changed the game for him. He also tells us who he’s working with now and to finish it off he explains what the situation is with the often requested “Dose of Dopeness”. Part 2 is coming next week.

At Summer Jam I had some time to meet Cudi and ask him a few questions. We first talked about his Complex Magazine cover and interview. I asked him to explain why he was so honest for the article and what it meant to him grace the cover of Complex. By now many of you have read this article and seen the cover so this will give you a look into how it all went down. [ Youtube video ]

“I looked at this as my first opportunity to reach the masses threw an interview. So if I’m going to say something important this was my time, anything I can’t say in records I should be able to say right now”

If you haven’t seen the cover or read article you can check it out here. Excuse the slight humm in the video, for some reason the camera picked up the silent air conditioning. Also if your a vimeo user, subscribe to the new Cudi Channel of videos. Keep reading for the second video where he talks about his fans.

After we discussed his upcoming Complex Magazine cover I asked him if there was anything he wanted to say to his fans and of course he wanted to say thank you for the support. [ Watch on Youtube ] “It’s not about hype anymore, its about fact”. DatNewCudi.com all day, unfortunately I stopped recording before Cudi got to drop the signature “Plain Pat, What Up!” at the end, ha my bad.

Right after being in Seattle for Summer Jam I was headed home for Rock The Bells a few days later in Vancouver. Video above has Nas and Damian Marley putting on a crazy show performing some of their past songs together as well as two new tracks from the upcoming album “Distant Relatives”. Keep reading for Talib Kweli, Common, Nas’ solo set as well as Damian Marley’s solo set.

Our Rock The Bells footage from Vancouver keeps on going. Now its time for Nas to run through his set as he does some of his hits like “Hate Me Know” and “One Mic”. Footage of Nas and Damian Marley performing as a duo is coming right up.

Nas and Damian Marley, currently working on their collaboration album “Distant Relatives”, were the headliners at this years Rock The Bells in Vancouver. The two performed various songs together and also did there own sets so heres some of Damian Marley performing alone. Nas footage is up next with footage of them performing together after, including two new tracks from their upcoming album.

Continuing with our Rock The Bells footage is Talib Kweli performing live. After being told Reflection Eternal wouldn’t be attending they showed up for a quick 20 minute set before Nas & Damian Marley. Hi-Tek didn’t get much time on the mic so this video is purely Talib performing.

Common went up and performed some of his recent hits as well as doing two freestyles. One for the city of Vancouver and one for some fun.