There is a swell of excitement that clings to Kid Cudi.
I am sitting in Selfridges’ second-floor private shopping suites waiting to slip into the side room and have some one-on-one time with the twice Grammy award-winning rapper, Emmy-nominated TV creator and, as of last year, fashion designer. We are running late, and he is nowhere to be seen. A good 30 minutes go by before the doors swing open, and in the middle of a stern-faced, rainbow-clad entourage led by a bodyguard in all-black, Cudi (real name Scott Ramon Mescudi) emerges.
Everyone tiptoes around him. Somebody whispers they “think he is in a good mood today”. Hardly confidence bolstering stuff as I prepare to interview one of the biggest rappers on the planet, but the mystique dissipates when I do finally take a seat. I find him snug on a sofa, kitted out in a bubblegum blue bomber jacket and shredded jeans, with a neon-printed silk scarf lassoed around one pocket; all of his own design. A disarming smile reveals a glistening pink, diamond grill. To my relief, not only is he in a good mood, but a chatty one too.
Cudi has reason to talk. Today is the European launch of his fashion brand, Members of the Rage, marked by a six-week pop-up at this department store. Some garments have already sold out online. “It feels unreal man, it’s f****** wild,” he says. Beginnings of the idea emerged in 2016. “I made a couple of samples, but they didn’t come back how I was hoping for them to. I got really discouraged and kind of gave up.”
It also happened to be the year Cudi went to rehab. “I spent so many years stifling myself and my creativity, being like, ‘I can’t do that. I’m not good enough, that’s not meant for me.’ I was sabotaging my whole s***,” he says.
The situation flipped after he sought help. “It was hard, especially the process of rehab. I tried to leave three times, and they talked me down each time,” he says. “Facing my bulls***, answering to my own drama and my own flaws, nobody likes to do that. It’s tough. But I had to go through it: no pain, no gain. I came out of that wanting to be better, more than I ever have in my life.”
The Ohio-born rapper first found success with his debut single Day ‘n’ Nite in 2007, which led to Kanye West (now known as Ye) signing him to his GOOD Music label the following year (following a public row with Ye regarding his outspoken reaction to ex-wife Kim Kardashian’s relationship with comedian Pete Davidson in 2022, Cudi has said it would take “a miracle” to repair their friendship). Cudi’s 2009 debut album, Man on the Moon: The End of Day, went quadruple platinum, and following albums went on to collect platinum and gold status. Pre-rehab, there were rumblings of a solid acting career, too, with Cudi acquiring a number of TV and film roles, including in Need for Speed (2012) and James White (2015).
It was not until 2021, when he was in a Covid-related quarantine in New Zealand, that he would finally realise his fashion label. “In those two weeks, Members of the Rage was born,” he says. It was a welcome break. “I’ve been doing music for so long, it’s been 15 years being Kid Cudi which is a long time to be doing any one thing. I’m curious to see what else I can accomplish.”
The name, shortened to MOTR, was initially a film idea — “It’s still a movie I want to do,” he quips — that sees a group of outcast children band together to stop an alien invasion. It so happens as we are speaking, former US intelligence official and whistleblower David Grusch is claiming to Congress that the American government has found, and is in possession of, “non-human biologics”. Cudi has strong views on this topic.
“I’ve always believed aliens are real. Always, since I was a little boy,” he says, seriously. “So I’m not too confused. I’m more like, okay, I think we’re done talking about it. Let’s see ‘em. Show me a flying saucer. Show me an alien on the operation table. Even if it’s blurry, I need to see something.”
A recurring MOTR motif, accordingly, is a UFO sucking up earth. In the pop-up you can find it splashed on tees and hoodies alike — not hard to spot on Selfridges’s first floor thanks to a 10ft statue of Cudi. This is a nod to his “mentor and big bro”, the late Virgil Abloh, who filled Louis Vuitton stores with huge mannequins when he was creative director. You can also expect classic menswear garments like puffer coats, tracksuit bottoms and jock-style bomber jackets with added Cudi flourishes.
“I know it’s not for everyone, it’s for people that totally live outside of the box,” he says. In actuality, this translates to vibrant fuchsia velour pyjama sets, American football-style, woven crop tops and one particularly special pink and blue, crystal and disc embellished, mohair knit jumper — yours for £1,855. “That’s the Kurt Cobain sweater,” he says.
A press release nods to his “Nineties grunge” inspiration, but I float the idea that psychedelia is the stronger throughline. Cudi chuckles. “Well, everybody knows I’m super into psychedelics. I have been for several years,” he says. And that entails? “Anything between DMT or acid or shrooms. You know, all of it… but not all at once.”
He launches into the benefits of mind-altering drugs. “At one point in every person’s life they should do psychedelics. If they don’t want to do acid, they should do shrooms,” Cudi says, pausing before explaining: “I feel like you have to massage the mind. Let it know that there’s other things beyond what you see. To feel the beyond, to feel pure joy.”
He is even looking forward to the day his daughter, Vada, 13, is old enough to get involved. “I hope my daughter calls me one day and says, ‘Dad, I want to take shrooms’. I’m gonna be like, ‘Thank god. Oh my god. I’m coming, I’m coming. We’ll do shrooms together and it’ll be great, kid,’” he says.
The negative side-effect of expressing himself via ecstasy-hued clothes, dresses and painted nails is reams of abuse concerning his masculinity. He is well acquainted with backlash from his 3.3 million Instagram and 2.6 million X (Twitter) followers. “To be a black man who is sensitive and wears their feelings on their sleeve, that’s looked upon as a sign of weakness,” he says. “But if anything to me, that means you’re more powerful than the average man: if you can cry, if you can say how you feel.”
Specifically, homophobic online trolls have convinced themselves he is gay. At the end of July, Cudi responded. “[You] know what’s crazy, and really makes me question the world we live in, is when I post a picture of me smiling on IG and there’s mad comments questioning my sexuality floodin’ my page w[ith] insults.” Today, he is calm when discussing it. “There’s a lot of homophobia in the world, I see it more now than ever. I’ve kissed boys, but I know who I am. If this was the person I was, people would have known this immediately. I would not be lying. I’m so real. I would have made sure to put that out there,” he says.
If Cudi is affected by these voices, he doesn’t show it. “I feel like I have a duty, as a black straight man in the world. I’m nearly 40 years old, I’m an OG now. My voice is strong. When I sit on a tweet, and I say, ‘Yo, if you’re homophobic and you have a problem with gay and trans rights, get off my feed, unfollow me,’ that s*** goes a long way.”
He discusses his displeasure with the fashion industry with comparable frankness. “With the exception of a few people, I feel like fashion is very boring,” he says. “I looked back at fashion the same way I did with music before I was Kid Cudi, and the world knew who I was.”
He came to a cutting conclusion: the clothes on today’s catwalks are as mundane as they are repetitive. “It was hard for me to find a ‘fit to perform in because nobody’s doing anything mega,” he says. For this reason, he began making his own, and now everyone can check out, if not buy, a bit of mega in Selfridges. “There’s a void missing, and I can fill that void with my voice.”
