[Music] [Music] the revelations continue and it's funny because in act one it starts super hard and it's like we're drawn into this world where the beats are tough and you're really rapping it's like stretching yourself lyrically and and on the mic
but you're also still dropping these things yeah like that moment like when you say like tell my mom i'm sorry it's kind of like you know admitting that my mom would be really disappointed if she thought that like um i allowed myself to go back to
that place again you know i never want to let my mom down and um but it's kind of like that's that's where i'm at and and and [Music] that's why i put that line in there because it's like it's kind of like this is this is what it is this is my reality
and this is what i'm feeling and that's what i'm going through and and um yeah tell my mom i'm sorry do you still feel like despite all the growth that it's there you know even with the tools and the therapy that that it's still there in you do you
think it'll always be there right because i i suffer i'll put myself in the picture i suffer from anxiety for real like i really do and i just had to accept at some point it's always going to be there yeah i think that's something that i've
come to terms with in the last two years in a lot of ways these feelings don't necessarily go away they hide and go in hiding for a while and then they wait for the right moment and they pop back up yeah you know yeah you're like oh i haven't felt this
in eight months yeah my mind is going this place i've i haven't gone there in four years but it's how we pump the brakes right yeah i also feel like talking about it therefore inspiring others to realize they're not alone ultimately makes you feel the same way
that that sharing of information has mutually beneficial effects in that regard it does it does because where i'm feeling alone i don't feel so alone when i see the response and i see that it's affecting so many people you know so it does give me
the music has always been like and i've always said this has been one big sos yeah you know out to the world to see who out there connects with what i'm saying who feels the same way what's a good day feel like though good day's great good day's great
talking to my daughter talking to my sister hanging out with my friends writing music but no album in mind just kind of making music that's always a good good time when when you're not there's no pressure to make something yeah but you've leaned into the
anticipation on this record in the biggest way right you must kind of love it when you know you've got something to go right yeah yeah yeah i do but i also i do like when there's just no pressure at all we were working on kissy ghosts
for the whole year in in all of 2018 up until it was released reborn was made in one of those sessions where we were just like hey let's just get together and just like no pressure i know we're working on kissy ghost but like let's see what happens yeah this is
around you know and that came out how it came out so like th there's magic that happens in those moments same thing with with passion pain and demon saying i made swimming the light and releaser before i even decided that i was making passing pain in demon
singing i made those during the life of pablo sessions because kanye was working on the other studio and i'd be in the other studio and i had mike dean in there and i was just like man i got mike dean playing pat and everybody in this room
we about to make something and we'd be making music in one room and they'd be in the other room and that's how it happened like i was just like cause i after speeding but it happened i was like man i don't know when i'm gonna do another album man
people on that album so much it's like man i don't know when like so like i just kind of stumbled we were in the studio on my birthday and we were just making and and i may swim in the light then i made frequency frequency and i was like yo i'm doing an album you
know it just kind of it naturally happens so like these moments where i'm like in the studio where there's no pressure to do anything some beautiful comes out of those sessions you know i feel like i wouldn't have gotten to that place
if i was like all right before these records like i'm gonna make a man on the moon three and let's set up studio four men on the moon three like it totally wouldn't have happened like that it would have been it would have been a whole other thing we would
have been thinking about it too much you know i mean it would have been the pressure of just trying to make this album and that's the thing i had to like make sure that what i was doing was what i was doing you know if it was if i was really making a man on a moon
three if that's where i was going with it and could it be done did i feel in my heart of hearts that like i could do better than the first two oh man the cadence on this record isn't unreal like the way it starts and goes through
and like i said beautiful trip tequila shots yeah it's hard but it's also emotional it's like this is where i was i need to get out of this place and then you just rage mr rager yeah it's just your owl and i think about like the beats and the way you rap and are
moving through the you know act two yeah it's just leading all the way through this unreal record with pop smoke you know and skepta when did you realize that you wanted to like really rat on this because it's not a given with you that was gonna get that yeah
yeah early on before i before i started working on this i was like my next got to be like bars like i knew that cause like i just remember like travis saying something to me about my raps he was just like man yo yo raps man i love when you rap and i
was just like okay i kept that in mind also okay like travis is saying my raps are good that must be something that the kids like i'll keep that in mind is this why you would like working on on scots no no this is a full yeah this is yeah
right when we were working on the scots like early on before we had the scott song right you know but this is like early on sessions right i just like wanted to give him exactly what he loved about kid cudi and and for him it was these bars you know
but i felt like in hip-hop i'm slept on as a rapper you know as a as a as a lyricist and i really wanted to elevate my whole on that front on this project and i did that with with the wrapping and the singing everything has kind of evolved and and
the added little sprinkle of ad-libs something i've never really done before either you know what i've done i was able to do it in my own little way you know so it remains authentic and just doesn't sound like i'm doing ad-libs like everybody else
you know what's the energy like in the studio when you're not when you're going into rap versus any of the other many shades of what kid cudi as an artist creates daytrip and dr genius pretty much produce this whole album right so a lot of the times
i would be in the studio with them they would be working on the beat and i would just be not writing in my memos yet but kind of just like thinking of flows and ideas for hooks in my mind as they're creating so by the time they're finished i have a
dozen ideas right they finish it's a system it's like they bang out the beat for about an hour lay it down i'll lay a reference immediately then i'll write that from there immediately we finish the song in the night speed is important to you yeah because
like i did a session with snoop dogg years ago he wrote this verse for the song we did it was a song that never came out officially it was like it was a song that leaked or whatever um and we never put it out officially i remember snoop coming in the studio
me playing the b for him him getting a pen and some paper writing this verse and like 15 minutes and laying it down and then she was like chef's kiss [Laughter] like i always like i ever since that moment i was like yo i want to get to
that level because it didn't take me 15 minutes to write a rap at that time you know it took me hours you know um so like over the years i've just gotten better with this writing i'm not uh judging myself when i'm writing something i'm i'm
letting it flow i'm not like oh no i'm not this not that i'm just like dope dope line maybe i can say this different dope you know what i'm saying it's like i just love the idea that you're like 2020 is going to be the year i'm going to
come out there and take my seat at the table i'm not going to be underrepresented or underestimated in the rap game anymore where's eminem who does that the rap god i mean like to put a record out with with eminem i think of your own project was just the
bossiest well that was that was me like be like yo i want to be respected as a mc yo who do i get who do i spar with who do i go bar for bar with eminem but how the f do you get eminem to actually i know man i i tweeted at him it went down in the dms yeah no it
wasn't even in the dms just in my my timeline yeah it was public like i was like yo rap god help and we're and we're we're really close with paul rosenberg and and he was able to connect us and and we were able to to get it done and and were you remote
were you together no he was in detroit i was in l.a so what's that experience like when you're trading versus back and forth there's a nail biter because i'm like waiting i'm waiting i'm like oh you know they're asking me questions they like they don't
say he's he's gonna do it just yet they're just asking me questions and i'm like so this means he's going to do it right because they're asking me questions and literally it was like every day i was like is it today going to be the day
it's today going to be the day and like i got it and i was like holy i was like it was something for me to get the validation from eminem by doing that record him doing that record let me know like he was telling me like yo i'll with you as an artist
fully even your bar is adult was it part of the the kind of inspiration and the validation you needed to to really lean into man on the moon three in that way yeah cause i had that song before i before i uh got into man on the moon three well
there's some amazing guests and amazing collaborations not too many which is actually lovely yeah because i think we all want a lot of you on this kind of in this experience especially a man on the moon project right it makes sense yeah um one song that really jumps out
for me is the trippy song his performance on that is really moving because i know that the loss of his peers really affects him we've spoken about it yeah and that's really at the core despite the the word play what's going on there right yeah
the rock star life could have gone the other way yeah definitely and i think uh trippy came in i i played him a few records and he he kind of like got the tone knew the importance of it being a man on the moon and went in there and hid it at the park
like it was like perfect you know like a perfect subject matter and he just rode the beat in a in a in an epic way you know and then it moves you know we talk about a song like show out with skepta and with pop smoke i can't recall is that the first
posthumous appearance by an artist on one of your albums yes how did that feel knowing that pop smoke made such an impact in such a short amount of time 100 built a legacy a sound something that we all appreciate and people really miss how
did that feel knowing that you had that appearance on the record and it was coming well it was it was it was powerful because like uh i talked to stephen victor about this and he said when he when he first recorded this this song um he had thought of me on it steven had
thought of me on it wow the reason why i kind of i got this record dr genius and playing pat had worked with pop before he blew up at the brewery in new york at dot studio when they had this record they just never did anything with it it was just
something that dot had on tuck you know and i was chilling with him one day cause dot's working on the album and he was like yo i got this record i'm gonna play it for you let me know what you think he plays his sh and i'm like i need this like i need this man
i was like nobody's ever heard me on anything like this skepta sounds amazing pop smoke sounds amazing like this would be so unexpected i think i can be on this and i could hold it down and like do my thing and this is also another
way i can you know showcase these bars yeah yeah beat is obscene yeah dr genius playing pat it's a moving moment it always is when you hit pop smoke it always is because the intensity of his performance and the authenticity that he had so immediately
yeah um it's a huge huge moment there and it must be for you for someone who has been through a lot yourself and been so open with your struggles when you see people pass and i know that the circumstances around pop are different and they they're different for everybody
but just bringing it back into the framework of the artistic spirit and how it doesn't always last it doesn't always end well it can lead artists to make decisions that are just tragic and sad yeah and there's something about the artistic spirit which seems so
larger than life and gives so much but it's there's a vulnerability to that which keeps coming up in conversation with artists that i'm speaking to especially now it's like the conversation space is open for this conversation to be had like we're not
invincible yeah there's something to this that we that needs to be identified and understood and protected because the the desire for artists to work all the time can have a negative impact yeah and i think i think i had to kind of take a step back
in my own career yeah because like i was saying i was dropping an album every year from 2012 to 2016. because i need to yeah cause if some some psycho whatever was going on in my mind for those five years yeah you know i needed it now
i do an album every other year i'm not like on the heels of another album working on more working on more like i have time to go do a movie or two or write a tv show or go do my animated show or just go hang out with my daughter have her come to la
kick it for two weeks and not have anything to do you know yeah my life is so paced now doing this album every other year is like that changed everything for me like everything the whole flow of my life is like it's so in tune with
like everything that i wanted to be like i'm solid with my baby mom i'm solid with my mom i'm sorry with my sister i'm solid with my daughter i'm sorry with my niece nieces uh because i got my niece amanda who's uh who's gonna be working with me i'm a
production company and i just started with bronze studios yeah uh so yeah like everything's everything's in place man and and i'm happy you know so touring as in when oh yeah it's a live album this album was made with touring in mind i really plan on hitting the ground
running when when we can get back out there man because uh it's been a long time since i've been on a a big tour and i run i want to blow this up and where would a song like lord i know fit into that as an album closer we know how it starts what does that song
mean to the album and to the overall experience for fans when they hear this album when we hear this album and going forward what is that song how does it fit oh man that's kind of like the that spiritual hymn that cuddy classic spiritual hymn
or like lord i know you can make it right you'll always have someone looking out for you you know and you're not alone in this and i think that that's one of the message that i want people to pick up on the album is is the fact that there is someone looking out
for you on this journey and this might seem like you're out there on your own and it's crazy and there's a lot of happening but um you know i do believe in in something that's that that's looking out for us and keeping it safe you know