MAGAZINE: KiD CuDi x COMPLEX (Oct./Nov. 2011)

Kid Cudi covers yet another Complex magazine…this third time is for their latest October/November 2011 issue. After a lot of changes Cudi has been making, this is definitely a cover story that his fans will want to check out. There are excerpts from the interview and photos from the spread, along with a behind the scenes video from his covers shoot…

Is that drug hangover why you disappeared after you released your second album?

I wanted to clear my head, besides detox. I had to look at the root of the whole problem, and that was work and the business./I wasn’t trying to hear it from nobody. I’m not even going to attack the people in my life that didn’t step in and try to stop it, ’cause I was just so bullheaded. There’s no way to slow somebody when they’re speeding down a path of destruction. I thought I was dealing with it in the proper way. I was in the moment. And when you’re that young, with that opportunity, all that money, and all that respect and power, sometimes you run with it. ’Cause I was like, “Man, you don’t know if this shit’s gon’ be here tomorrow.

At the top of the year you seemed to be spending a lot time in New York with Kanye.

I was at another place, another dark place. Me and my girl had broken up. I wasn’t fully healed yet. And being around Kanye and music was my escape. He’s a sober guy, he has a drink every once in a while, but seeing how he throws himself into the studio when he’s stressing about something, I totally admire that. Being around that was therapy for me.

Are you back together with your lady?

Yeah, we’re solid. I’m just trying to figure out love. I never was really good at it, but when you have someone who loves you so much and can take your good and your bad, and work with you and help you grow—that’s priceless. To have a ride-or-die woman, for somebody that’s in the position I’m in, that’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing.

Speaking of people you don’t fuck with musically, you coined that phrase in Complex last year talking about Wale, but now you guys have peaced it up and you’re doing a feature for him.

Wale is the homie, and I like the record he wants me to get on. This is my redemption for those comments last year. I definitely want people to see that we can create music together.

Let’s talk about your number one commitment, the Wizard album. What made you want to take a break from the MOTM series to do something different?

After I got off the drugs I was like, I need a fucking hobby. I can’t be chillin’ in the house playing video games all the time. And I can’t be in the clubs, ’cause that led to the disaster. So what am I going to do? Why don’t I try to pick up an instrument? I always wanted to play guitar. I tried it as a child and failed, tremendously. I tried to play the trumpet, the fucking clarinet, violin. Back then, when you tried that in school they would want you to read sheet music. It wasn’t about, “Can you play by ear?” I’m not one of those musicians. So I picked up the guitar last fall and I started fiddling with it. It came kind of natural to me. I’m not saying that the first time around I was shredding riffs. But I was able to pick it up and pick, and go up and down the neck, and find melodies. I was like, “Shit, I want to just make jams with this instrument.” It was something that I took very seriously.

Acting, guitar, bingeing, sobriety, breakups, shake-ups—you’ve come a long way since your first Complex cover two years ago. Where do you think you’re gonna be two years from now?

I wanna be taking it easy. I wanna be hanging out with my daughter. I’ve been working, working, working since I got in this business. My mom tells me I work too much, and she could be right. I just want to be able to take a break and raise my kid. I’m always going to be working on something because I have too many ideas. Every day I come up with some wild fucking idea, some type of scheme. I feel like I have a purpose and if I don’t create then I’m letting myself down. I’ve been given this opportunity for people to listen to me worldwide. I’m just gonna fucking keep rocking and keep rocking and keep rocking until I’m in a wheelchair somewhere.

Source Complex