Kid Cudi Is Mad He Wasn’t Featured More On ‘Yeezus’

Carl Williott | February 27, 2014 10:22 am

When Kid Cudi left G.O.O.D. Music last year, it seemed to be on good terms. But now he’s opening up about some frustrations that led to his departure from Kanye West‘s label. Namely, he thinks he was “underused,” deserving more, and longer, features on G.O.O.D. tracks. For instance, Cudi claims his vocal on Yeezus track “Guilt Trip” was a couple years old and that he didn’t know it was being used until the song dropped, and that it was tacked on to trick Cudi fans into listening.

“It was like, why not call me and have me come in there and give it? Why underuse me?” he told Complex. “Why put four bars of vocals to coax my fans into thinking this is a legitimate Kid Cudi feature on this song and it isn’t?” He continued, “Same deal with the G.O.O.D. Music album, the compilation. Had I not given Kanye ‘Creepers’ my only presence would’ve been on that one song, that I can’t even remember the title for. [‘The Morning’ —Ed.] I would’ve barely been on that album.”

OK so he has a point, Ye should’ve alerted him about “Guilt Trip.” Although, in Kanye’s defense, he was keeping the whole project under wraps, and much of it came together in a frantic final couple of weeks. The thing about that Cudi cameo is, it was a key component of that song. And part of the reason it was powerful is because the vocal run was used judiciously. And it could’ve been even shorter! Look at Frank Ocean‘s microscopic feature on “New Slaves.” The impact of a feature doesn’t necessarily correlate with its length, so the complaint seems kind of petty since it was an effective cameo in the bigger picture.

As for his Cruel Summer gripes, well, “Creepers” was one of the standout tracks so you could say everything after that is gravy. But let’s be real, “The Morning” feature felt like a complete afterthought, so his complaint here is totally justified. “It’s weird. I don’t know how to feel but I would’ve much rather been off that song,” Cudi said. “I don’t care to be on people’s songs like that. Unless it came from a legitimate session where we’re all vibing and have an idea.”

That’s fair, the Kid is against the practice of cutting and pasting random bits of disembodied tracks together, prefering to get the primary creators involved in the process face to face. It’ll be interesting to see if/how Kanye responds to all this.

[via Complex]

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