Kid Cudi: Man on the Moon II 2LP Vinyl

Why you'll love it

This 2LP set comes in a gatefold sleeve with a download code for the full album. It debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 with 169,000 copies in its first week and went platinum in 2018.

This edition

2LP set
Gatefold jacket
Download card included

About the album

Kid Cudi first planned his second album as a party record full of famous friends. Then he scrapped it. Instead he made the second chapter of the Man on the Moon trilogy, a darker and more personal record that drops the dreamscapes of his debut and brings the listener into his reality, the good parts and the hard ones. It came out through Dream On and Kanye West's GOOD Music in November 2010, a year after Man on the Moon: The End of Day.

Long-time collaborators Emile Haynie and Plain Pat steer the production, with help from Anthony Kilhoffer, Dot da Genius, Jim Jonsin, Mike Dean and others, and Cudi folds alternative rock and psychedelia into the hip-hop. Kanye West joins him on the bouncy single "Erase Me," "Mr. Rager" sets out the album's alter ego, and St. Vincent lends her voice to "Maniac" alongside Cage. CeeLo Green and Mary J. Blige also turn up.

Plenty of later rappers have pointed to this kind of open, melodic introspection as a starting point. Cudi got there early, and with better hums than most.

Also at Kops: more Kid Cudi on vinyl · browse Hip Hop / R&B