Hip-Hop's best astronaut takes off for the moon

When Kid Cudi strolled onto the Madison Square Garden stage for rap god Jay-Z's sold-out Sept. 11 benefit concert, he lived up to his infantile moniker by jubilantly bouncing across the platform. Cudi, who usually projects cool, seemed awestruck by the moment. It's a shock he didn't carry a colorful backpack and ask for an autograph.

His debut album, Man on the Moon: The End of Day, is the sonic realization of his playful image. And tracks show Cudi is here to stay in an industry still dominated by hip-hop veterans, though he musically communicates this notion in weird, melancholy and sometimes absurdly funny ways.

But Cudi isn't exactly "here," for his ambitions are aimed skyward. As the title would suggest, his thoughts on his debut are a stratosphere above typical hip-hop. Instead of painting lyrical pictures of grimy, graveled city streets, Cudi creates panoramic, watercolor ramblings that still contain two of modern rap's rarest qualities: authenticity and freshness.

Perhaps the perfect label for the nearly unclassifiable Cudi is "Solo Dolo (Nightmare)," as suggested by the fourth track of the album. Produced by veteran beatmaker Emile, the record is centered around Cudi's nonsensical declaration "I'm Mr. Solo Dolo."

The track spins ellipses around this statement. Cudi gradually reveals his insights among odd, looping and slightly off-key samples. His flow is precise and slow as he narrates his story of being the "outcast" who finds a respite in his music. "But what I might feel all the sounds of sanity/ Hoping what I hear, loops itself continuously/ Then I won't be afraid."

Cudi's tales of lost adolescence achingly spill out again during his masterpiece, "My World." The bombastic Billy Craven chorus, "This will be my world," is undercut by Cudi quietly muttering "I told you so" in the background. In the manner of Kanye West's seminal "Spaceship," Cudi looks to the stars as a relief from the grating grind of the uncool, uncertain, working-class teenager's life as he raps of alienation that is both social ("Flew off the moon/ Still had no one/ No one to hang out with") and societal ("All I would wonder is when will my time come/ Had mad jobs and I lost damn near all of them").

Cudi's themes run throughout the songs and become more serious as they flow. When Cudi raps of "The lonely stoner, Mr. Solo Dolo/ He's on the move, can't seem to shake the shade/ Within his dreams he sees the life he made" on "Day 'N' Nite (Nightmare)" he has communicated his emotions to listeners completely.

West, who paved the way for new-age rappers such as Kid Cudi, adds a gorgeous closing instrumentation to "Sky Might Fall." The music is reminiscent of that on 808s and Heartbreak — it incorporates a harsh drum machine, long synth melodies and typical West bombast that is complemented by Cudi's laments. "See happiness is gone again/ And then you see 'em/ Gray clouds up above man," Cudi says to balance his self-aware punch line, "Metaphor to my life, man."

The aforementioned infamous disrupter of this year's MTV Video Music Awards contributes vocals, as well as beats, to "Make Her Say." The song samples Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" for a cruder result. Cudi, who spoke so eloquently of romantic disaffection earlier on the album, unsuccessfully transforms into a Casanova to play with the big boys on the track. This issue of false bravura reoccurs in "Hyyerr," one of the few craters on Cudi's moon.

It may be difficult to believe that Cudi, who has reached so high so quickly, can rocket even further. But as the final track of Man on the Moon: The End of Day states, it's only "up and up away" from here for the only rapper on the moon. Soon, it may be Jay-Z sharing Kid Cudi's stage at Madison Square Garden.

vmain13@umdbk.com

RATING: 4 stars out of 5