Kid Cudi

Kid Cudi was born in Cleveland, Ohio and grew up in Shaker Heights and Solon.His father, a house painter, substitute teacher and World War II Air Force veteran was Mexican-Native American, while his mother, a middle-school choir teacher at Roxboro Middle School, in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, is African-American.When he was eleven years old, Mescudi's father passed away from cancer; his passing would have a significant effect on his personality and subsequently his music.Mescudi attended Shaker Heights High School for two years, transferred to Solon High School, and earned his GED. Later, Mescudi studied film at the University of Toledo then dropped out after a year.
It was towards the end of high school that Mescudi first began rapping, inspired by alternative hip hop groups such as The Pharcyde and A Tribe Called Quest.He moved to Brooklyn in New York City to pursue a music career. In July of 2008, Kid Cudi released his first mixtape, A Kid Named Cudi, in collaboration with New York street-wear brand 10.Deep as a free download. The mixtape quickly caught the attention of Kanye West, which in turn spawned his signing to GOOD Music later that year.
Kid Cudi was featured on Kanye West's 2008 album, 808s & Heartbreak, singing with West on the track "Welcome to Heartbreak", and helping with songwriting on "Heartless" and "Paranoid". "Welcome to Heartbreak" peaked at #87 on the Pop 100, and music videos for both songs have been released. Cudi was then tipped as an artist to watch for in medias such as Rolling Stone, Vibe, The Source, XXL and BBC News's Sound of 2009 poll of up-and-coming acts. MTV News also reported on Cudi on a series of reports MCs To Watch In 2009.
His first television appearance was at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards, alongside Travis Barker and DJ AM. On February 17, 2009, he appeared on Snoop Dogg's MTV talk show Dogg After Dark performing "Day 'n' Nite" at the end of the show. Two days later on February 19, 2009, Cudi appeared on BET's 106 & Park with Kanye West to debut the video of "Day 'n' Nite". On March 16, 2009 Kid Cudi performed on mtvU's Spring Break special, and the next day he performed three songs on NBC's Last Call with Carson Daly. He has also appeared as a musical guest on The Late Show with David Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel Live!.
Kid Cudi also made a cameo appearance next to Solange in the video for the song "T.O.N.Y." in February 2009, and later in the Black Eyed Peas' video for "I Gotta Feeling", with David Guetta. He has also been on two magazine covers, Complex (August/September 2009) and URB (August 2009). Bape awarded Cudi his own t-shirt in September 2009, in reward for his music and past employment there when living in New York City.
Cudi's debut album Man on the Moon: The End of Day was released on Universal Motown Records on September 15, 2009 and sold 104,419 copies in the first week and charted at #4.The album's first single was Day 'N' Nite, and is Kid Cudi's greatest commercial success thus far, the song charting well both in the U.S. and in Europe. The next single was "Make Her Say" (originally titled "I Poke Her Face"), which features a sample from the acoustic version of Lady Gaga's song "Poker Face" and performances by Kanye West and Common.
On February 25, 2009, Cudi self-leaked a "teaser trailer" for the upcoming Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen film using his song "Sky Might Fall" in the background, later he posted that he made the trailer himself and now was in talks to possibly make it official.
With Emile, Cudi produced an exclusive single called "Switchin Lanes" for the video game Midnight Club: Los Angeles, part of its "South Central Premium Upgrade" downloadable content (DLC) which came out March 19, 2009 for the PlayStation 3 and March 27, 2009 for the Xbox 360.
He revealed information about his future plans via his blog, saying that a possible collaboration with Chip tha Ripper (rapper) could be followed with a collaboration project with electrorock duo Ratatat. During the summer of 2009, Cudi joined rapper Asher Roth for the Great Hangover concert tour. Kid Cudi featured on the highly anticipated Jay-Z album The Blueprint 3, on the song "Already Home". In a recent interview, Cudi announced that the follow-up to his debut album will be a collaboration album called Cudder and the Revolution of Evolution. He stated he has already recorded songs with Snoop Dogg, Travis Barker, Clipse, Cage and Pharrell and would also like to work with Drake, Green Day, Kings of Leon, Robin Thicke, The Killers and The Postal Service on the album. Also it's rumored that "Man On The Moon: The End Of Day" will be followed up by a sequel titled "Man On The Moon: The Ghost in the Machine" and that the Man on the Moon will be a trilogy, but has not been confirmed. Kid Cudi was nominated for three 2010 Grammy Awards for his singles, "Day 'n' Nite" and "Make Her Say". Kid Cudi was featured on Snoop Dogg's More Malice deluxe album, in the song "That Tree". Kid Cudi also teamed up with Johnny Polygon to remix Johnny's "Riot Song" which appears on Johnny's album, Rebel Without Applause On April 20, 2010, Kid Cudi announced that the name of his second album has been changed from Cudder and the Revolution of Evolution to Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager. The album is due for an October 26, 2010 release.
A promotional single, "REVOFEV", was released from the album in early 2010. The official lead single, "Erase Me" featuring Kanye West, was released for airplay on June 30, 2010. The single would officially be released on iTunes on August 24, 2010.
Kid Cudi is currently starring in the new HBO comedy series How to Make it in America,produced by Mark Wahlberg.