Kid Cudi Hints at New Albums on Twitter and in Interview

Kid Cudi’s last album was 2010’s Man on the Moon II: Legend of Mr. Rager, but the video for its latest single, “Mr. Rager,” a seven-minute short film was released a week ago. The rapper-turned-musician, however, tweeted yesterday about two albums, one hip-hop and one rock-influenced: “Now time to finish this Wizard project up and then vacation then MOTM3!”

For those of you not following Cudi’s career, the rapper became “just over” hip-hop and started a band, called Wizards, with Dot Da Genius, which he announced in late in 2010. Although “Wizards” became 2 Be Continuum, Cudi’s been working on an album, and once the guitar-influenced release is completed, he will be recording a third Man in the Moon album, as his tweet indicates.

But why guitar? Could this be as great of a career misstep as Lil Wayne’s dabbling with rock? In an interview with Complex that appeared today, Cudi told the magazine: “After I got off the drugs I was like, I need a f*cking hobby. I can’t be chillin’ in the house playing video games all the time. And I can’t be in the clubs, ’cause that led to the disaster. So what am I going to do? Why don’t I try to pick up an instrument?

“I always wanted to play guitar. I tried it as a child and failed, tremendously. I tried to play the trumpet, the f*cking clarinet, violin. Back then, when you tried that in school they would want you to read sheet music. It wasn’t about, ‘Can you play by ear?’ I’m not one of those musicians.

So I picked up the guitar last fall and I started fiddling with it. It came kind of natural to me. I’m not saying that the first time around I was shredding riffs. But I was able to pick it up and pick, and go up and down the neck, and find melodies. I was like, ‘Sh*t, I want to just make jams with this instrument.’ It was something that I took very seriously.”

The rapper also admits that being around Kanye West was a form of therapy in recovering from drugs: “And being around Kanye and music was my escape. He’s a sober guy, he has a drink every once in a while, but seeing how he throws himself into the studio when he’s stressing about something, I totally admire that. Being around that was therapy for me.”

It appears that Cudi adopted the same methods to finishing the Wizards album, which has no release date but, based on his goal for getting out Man in the Moon III, should be out over the next year: “Even after the arrest I didn’t want to stop working. I owed it to my fans and my staff and the label, to finish what I started. I started an album, I need to finish it. Push it back, but it’s coming out. And that’s just me being the businessman, still wanting to deliver a product. I didn’t want to b*tch and whine about it like, ‘Oh, man, I couldn’t finish this album because I was dealing with some things!’”