The hip-hop song that details and unravels the inner demons of the artist is seen as brave, sometimes a cause for celebration. This, after all, is what so many of us say that we want. If I, as a consumer of art, create a structure where I choose not to separate an artist’s flaws from the art they create, I am saying that I also must value an artist who leans into a raw and open vulnerability through their art, even if I think it to be occasionally messy. Even his failures, like last year’s sprawling and confusing Speedin’ Bullet 2 Heaven, feel triumphant, in that through the work, we learn about what he has had to survive in order to create it. Beyond the fact that we share the same home state, he embodies so many parts of it. I have, in many ways, always found myself rooting for Kid Cudi. Abandoned factories still blow clouds of white smoke from their rooftops. For the past two winters, I’ve driven into Ohio from the north, cutting through Kid Cudi’s old stomping grounds. But it is also hard to shake the isolation, the feeling of loneliness that can creep into the architecture of living. There’s a silence in these types of winters that allows for grand, creative moments that come to life later, during warmer months, adding to the vibrancy and brilliance of a city like Cleveland. During bad Ohio winters, the ones where pipes burst and thick snow pushes its weight down on power lines, people stay inside unless they have no other choice. I think of how, in winter, a heavy chill drifts in from Lake Erie and sits over the city, sometimes for months, making the outside world a burden. With this in mind, when I think of Kid Cudi, I also think of Cleveland, Ohio, in all of its beauty and its moods. It is nearly impossible to imagine an artist and their work without also framing those ideas around where they come from.
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