kid cudi saved my life
Editorial for Issue #6: FAITH
Artist: Kid Cudi
Date: 06.23.2026
Location: Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, California
Setlist: Rebel Ragers tour 2026
mr. rager is expounding to me how overwhelmed he felt. mr. rager aka scott mescudi aka kid cudi stares at me from across the hostel room, perched on my bed, i have two, wearing a black hoodie and white tee. we are separated by screen, a thousand miles away, and he is a documentary called a man named scott. kid cudi had a unique problem, the people felt his music too much. his slightly off-beat, i always wondered why he never fixed his vocals given how talented of a producer he is, visceral music had pulled a generation of angsty human beings out of a tough-ass time. "let go, life gets tough, no need to stress, hold you back too much. let's go i heard they found a solution, where will you be for the revolution?" today we are at shoreline amphitheater and kid cudi is once again a screen away, we got lawn tickets and i got there late. but i can see him. mr.rager is once again wearing a black hoodie and white tee. there is no angst in the air but you get the sense that there could have been, touch your tongue and feel the wind. kid cudi is mr. solo dolo, the big brother, the mentor that tells you that it is going to be alright. you, college student in another country with nothing to look froward to, are going to be okay. midway a sincere rendering of a setlist "for the day 1s" you’re singing by yourself, alone, away from your friends, they might as well be a country away, trying not to cry, why should you cry when you can positively re-inforce your body? it's 12am and you've wanted to break down all day but there is no space there just isn’t, so you do push-ups, dragging yourself down and pushing yourself up 30 times. you put your signals out to the world, but this, and everything i do, is for no one but me to be free. scott mescudi is free on stage, the visuals, and stage production, are, as with all kid cudi, understated sleek and controlled. it will always contrast with his music, sun setting in open air, happy smoke tracing silhouettes over the lawn spilling into the cavea, gentle color grading and three camera angles, "mr rager, hey mr rager, tell me where you're going, tell me how you're living," the crowd demands. so, mr. rager was overwhelmed, as was i, comical tears in the hostel room, like the emoji, but tonight, tonight there will be no push-ups. kid cudi is released, there is faith in wearing your heart on your sleeve, for all to see. there is faith in moulding your image from what speaks your language. there is faith in letting go, creating space, and coming back, fresh perspectives emerging from midnight push-ups on a cold faded wooden floor in an apartment thousands of miles away from your two bed hostel room where kid cudi expounded on his feelings of carrying the burden of sadness. faith, in all its imperfection, for you cannot simply have faith, you must have faith in, you need a secondary, even if it is yourself, is how we will survive our own worst tendencies. faith is “maui wowie” blowing up 16 years later and now a whole wave of young tiktok fans flock to kid cudi for his whimsicality.
fittingly, the encore is all hype music, because when all the applause and adulation and ripping of sleeves ends, what is left to do, but party? the concert ends with the steve aoki remix of pursuit of happiness and it is gold in shoreline amphitheater. gold as far as the eye can see. everyone has got it, everyone is gooooooooooodd.