Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager

            “What up, how is everyone doing? / You are now in the world I am ruining.”

These are the first two bars in "Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager." A sequel to last year’s "Man on the Moon: The End of Day," one thing to keep in mind going into this album is that Kid Cudi is not always a straight talker. He can be a blunt storyteller (such as on “Erase Me”) or a minimal lyricist with a focus on creating mood with an underlying message (“REVOFEV”). For this reason, MotMII will require more than one play-through to fully understand it.

Thankfully, deciphering the meaning of Cudi’s lyrics is pleasant thanks to some wonderful guest appearances and the welcome return of producers Emile, Plain Pat, and Dot da Genius (A.K.A. The guy who made “Day ‘N’ Nite”).

Like the last album, this one is made up of five arbitrarily divided “acts.” The aforementioned opening track “Scott Mescudi vs. The World” features shared production by No I.D., Emile, and The Smeezingtons (A.K.A. The guys who made B.o.B’s smash-hit “Nothin’ On You”) and features Cee-Lo Green (A.K.A. the guy who sang the super smash-hit “Crazy”). No I.D. also helps Plain Pat provide an appropriately battle drumming beat on the next track “REVOFEV” while Cudi raps about how rough life can get and calls for a revolution.

The revolution appears to come in the form of narcotics in the second act, where Cudi presents a series of darker and more ominous songs about lighting up and getting high. One of these songs features Mary J. Blige (coincidentally, her middle name is Jane. Mary Jane. Tee-hee) and the chapter overall is meant to chronicle the feelings and emotions one gets from regular drug use.

Act III provides relief with party-themed bangers and “Erase Me”, which is a relatively straightforward ballad featuring Kanye West. Act IV is called “The Transformation” and is comprised of songs that go from him rapping about making a room darker with a magic marker on the bleak “MANIAC” to the crooning “Mr. Rager”, where Cudi asks the title character about his travels.

This curiosity results in him forgetting about his troubles on “These Worries” and “The End” has him trading verses with GLC and Chip Tha Ripper about closing the door on people who betray their trust. The last three songs make up the final act. They start with the lonely moping wrist cutter that is “All Along” and end with “Trapped In My Mind,” where Cudi finds contentment with the reality he cannot wake from.

Overall, most of the songs described are listenable, with fewer duds this time around. However, the borderline abstract nature of Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager means that writing, let’s say, a review for it can produce migraines. It’s best not to think about the meaning too much and just take from the album what means the most to the listener. This is the reason Kid Cudi calls himself “Moon Man” – combining clarity and obscurity while managing to not make it confusing makes him a compelling force in alternative hip-hop.

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Straight No Chaser on Mr. Hudson's Album

Mr. Hudson has never been the most popular talent in music. Despite a cult following since his debut album, A Tale of Two Cities, in 2007, he just hasn’t had enough popularity to catch fire. Straight No Chaser is his attempt to change that, and he succeeds the jump to mainstream – or, at least, he should.

The album is a breakup album that is electronic pop with a tasteful use of autotune that creates a sense of desperation and avoids obscuring his talented voice. Kanye West and Kid Cudi provide the only guest performances, leaving Mr. Hudson to take center stage for the rest of the album and completely dominate it.

I have no idea if the lyrics in these songs are personal – but if they are, then Mr. Hudson is in a world of turmoil. “There Will Be Tears,” the bleakest of these songs, has the heaviest use of autotune. You wouldn’t even recognize his voice if you didn’t know it was him, but that may be the point – as if he doesn’t recognize himself. If every song on the album were like this, then I would say go drown yourself instead.

Fortunately, most of the songs – while just as moping – are much more energetic and even danceable in some cases. The title track is mesmerizing, “Stiff Upper Lip” can actually be seen as hilarious, and “White Lies” manages to be a charming display of why love could make a person lie.

Kanye West is featured in two of the best songs on the album, with him singing in duet with Hudson on
“Supernova” and providing a taunting verse on “Anyone But Him.” Unfortunately, the collaboration with Kid Cudi is a missed opportunity – I always thought he was a stronger singer than rapper, and hearing a 15 second rap verse on “Everything Is Broken” where you can barely understand him is disappointing when his singing vocals could have been better used.

While this album is not available in the US (not yet anyway) it has managed to gain great popularity in the UK. The themes Mr. Hudson presents here are as genuine as they come, and I will especially have that title track on repeat for some time.

Lil Wayne takes a Misstep with Rebirth

There has been a lot of (mostly autotuned) experimentation in music lately. Artists have shifted direction, genres have blended, and while a lot of it has been good, some of it has been bad. At the same time, Lil Wayne took over the rap scene in the time span of three short years with several mixtapes, Tha Carter III, and countless featured appearances – and now he’s going after rock. Rebirth, Lil Wayne’s year-in-the-making attempt to become a rockstar, shows signs of promise. A recurring theme of the album is that, apparently, poor Weezy was dumped by his high school sweetheart for another guy (as especially evidenced by the year-old single “Prom Queen” and the lesser “The Price Is Wrong”). Who hasn’t gone through that? Instantly relatable, right? Not really.

The album opens with “American Star”, which features Young Money labelmate Shanell and has almost a country inspired edge to it. “Prom Queen,” the first single released over a year ago, is the equivalent to Kanye West’s “Love Lockdown” only in the sense that it establishes Weezy’s change in direction and you either love it or hate it.


The next song sets a terrible precedent. It’s not that the song is bad, but I was halfway through it when I heard the lyrics “J-j-jump out a window, l-l-let’s jump off a building, baby.” The song is called “Ground Zero,” and besides being in poor taste I could not think of anything more appropriate to foreshadow the rest of the album.

“Da Da Da” and “Runnin’” (the latter of which should really be “Shanell featuring Lil Wayne, and not vice versa) are named based on more than half of their respective lyrics, and “Get A Life” is a “who cares” anthem that sounds familiar in a bad way. “Paradice” (spelled that way) is meant to be a foray into self-doubting fame and fortune, but it sounds false coming from someone who’s been taking over the music industry for the past few years. Nicki Minaj also makes her name debut in “Knockout”, where she proves to be a stronger rapper than singer.

The best songs on the album show that Lil Wayne is at his best when he’s himself. Despite the bad subject matter, “Ground Zero” is as good a rap song as it is a controversial one. Lil Wayne also raps on “One Way Trip” with a chorus by Kevin Rudolf, and “Drop The World” – far and away Lil Wayne’s best song on the album – is helped greatly by a verse from Eminem. By the way, he’s totally back, and he even opens up with a well-sung bridge. Maybe he should do a rock album.

The best that can be said about this album is that not every song is bad. The ones where Lil Wayne does what he does best – rap his ass off – are the ones that are most worthy of your attention. Everything else is entirely dependant on what you expect from your music. If you're a fan of Lil Wayne, then your expectations probably aren't that high.

He's A Pirate!

Let me get one thing out of the way: I hate music piracy. I hate it because it is eating away at the industry like a fat tumor that has been left virtually untreated for literally a decade. The problem is worse than it was in 2000 with Napster - today, any song or album is usually available somewhere on the Internet for free. It's a big place, after all. I hate piracy. And I do it all the time.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a heavy user. I mostly pirate a song here or there if I haven't heard it, and I'm more likely to if it's more than a couple of years old. Or, it might not be on iTunes. But the fact that I'm making excuses just shows that I'm barely taking this problem more seriously than people who do it chronically.

If people keep downloading music for free, then that means artists can't sell their albums. If artists can't sell their albums, then that means they have two options: stop making music, or figure out incentives.

I'm not talking about bonus tracks or iTunes digital booklets (the former can be just as easily pirated and nobody cares about the latter) I mean things that you can never get through piracy that people would actually care about.

Look at how iTunes sells movies. In many cases, the downloads include foreign dubs and subtitles, and you can skip around chapters like a DVD. Apple's iTunes LP seems like a step in the right direction, which can only be described as a music album with DVD menus. It features unique designs that match the album, more computer-friendly liner notes, trivia, and bonus videos.

At least, it did seem like a step in the right direction. I literally just checked as I'm writing this, and Apple seems to have abandoned the concept for some reason. Either that or it's really hard to find. Either way, it doesn't seem to be catching on.

Okay. So I ask you, the readers: now what?

Why I (Mostly) Hate Lil Wayne

I know people are largely split as far as this guy is concerned, so to avoid any backlash, I'm going to say good things first.

Lil Wayne is successful. He immediately propels any song he's on to Top 40 success. He's even capable of making decent songs once in awhile.

But there's plenty of reasons not to like him - even for people who do:


He doesn't represent real hip-hop

Look, I know he can make music, and rap, and have beats and everything - but just saying whatever rhymes and calling it a song doesn't count. People who say hip-hop isn't real music usually point to this guy as a scapegoat and haven't really heard much else, thus hurting the genre's credibility.


He turns off hip-hop purists


A friend of mine once told me he doesn't listen to any new artists after 2007 - funny, that's the same year Lil Wayne caught fire. When there have been legit good artists like Drake and Asher Roth since then - both go hard lyrically, see Say What's Real by the former and La Di Da by the latter - it's truly a shame.


He thinks he's infallible


Lil Wayne is tackling rock now, and his Rebirth album...kind of sucks (I totally saw it coming). I'm not going to knock Lil Wayne for messing around with rap - he doesn't sound bad at times - but his arrogance that he thinks he can work with any genre is just appalling.


So there you go, if you have any other reasons for hating Lil Wayne (or if you disagree with mine) then leave your words in the comments. Just try to write something more intelligent than "You don't know what the **** you're talking about, YOUNG MULAH BABY!!"