People are not going to f- with this.’ And then hit and, you know, it happened how it happened.” I remember, I couldn’t sleep before my debut album came out. “I was part of this new era of hip-hop along with artists like Kid Sister and the Cool Kids,” Cudi says. Cudi remains genuinely taken aback that the same kid who left Cleveland in 2005 with just $500 and a demo tape to pursue a rap career in New York, paid for studio time by working at Applebee’s and was evicted from his apartment within a few years was logging songwriting credits with two of the most powerful figures in music. Yet this is no subtle attempt at name-dropping. Kanye, of course, is music and fashion icon Kanye West and Hov is Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter, a recent inductee into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and hip-hop’s first billionaire.
