Days Of Brandon: October 2010

Kid Cudi has had an eventful year. Brawls with fans allegedly led to being booted from his opening spot on Lady Gaga's tour, he was busted for possession of cocaine and criminal mischief, he beefed with Wale, and he became a father to a baby girl named Vada.

But oddly, none of those topics is addressed on his upcoming sophomore album, "Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager" (G.O.O.D. Music/Dream On/Universal Motown). "It's not like 'Cudi's problems with fame, chapter two,' " the 26-year-old says of his forthcoming set. In fact, the album, while still "aggressive and dark and energetic," as he describes it, is a reflection of where Cudi, born Scott Mescudi, is in his life right now.

"I'm a lot happier-things are in better order and there's peace within my crew and within myself," Cudi says. "I feel I had to go through the fire to get here and I wouldn't change my experiences for the world. At this point, I'm locked in. I definitely got my shit together."

Now that his life's in order, Cudi, who says he's been off drugs for a few months now, is ready for the Nov. 9 release of "Man on the Moon II," which features guest spots from Mary J. Blige, Cage, GLC and mentor/G.O.O.D. Music label head Kanye West. To promote the album, Universal Motown partnered with music video site Vevo's "Go Show" viral events to premiere the first single, "Revofev." Cudi also performed at New York's Bape clothing store, where he once worked, with Vevo and YouTube broadcasting the concert. According to Universal Motown senior director of marketing Billy Zarro, the video garnered "over 8.7 million views in 10 days, immediately becoming the most popular Go Show to date."

However, "Revofev" failed to chart. But second single "Erase Me," featuring West, bowed at No. 22 on the Billboard Hot 100 in September. Follow-up "Mr. Rager" will be released in a couple of weeks.

According to manager/producer Plain Pat, the new album is a sign of Cudi's growth. "It's more mature on all angles-the production, himself. He really lays it on the line on this album and it's a lot more cohesive," he says.

Cudi is on a college tour and planning a worldwide trek for 2011. He's also designing a collection for Bape, including a "Rager" T-shirt that will be available on the album's release date, and is set to shoot the second season of HBO series "How to Make It in America" early next year. Additionally, he has struck branding partnerships with Converse, Vitaminwater and Heineken, while "Erase Me" appeared in the season premiere of CW's "90210," according to Zarro.

Now that he's found peace, Cudi hopes to remain grounded-in his own newfound, overconfident way. "I really just find that life is fucking funny," he says. "You have to take shit as it comes and man up. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger-that's a fact. Even in death no one will stop me from being great. That's all I know."

God has a Kanye West complex. Or so it would seem given the number of times that the rapper-slash-blogger-slash-producer-slash-designer-slash-director talked of "divine intervention" over the course of a remarkable evening held earlier this week at BAFTA headquarters in London. Whatever you think of the Chicago native (and let it be said early on, GQ is a huge fan), the most outspoken man in hip-hop certainly doesn't lack ambition. The event was to mark the screening of his 35-minute film, entitled Runaway, which will accompany his fifth album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, due out in November. Expectations were high - Kanye always had excellent taste in visuals from the living pin-ups of Gold Digger to the murderous supermodel in Flashing Lights -and Runaway didn't disappoint.

The audience was a diverse mixture: Kanye's associates (choreographer Yemi Akinyemi, stylist Virgil Abloh, designer Kim Jones, singers Mr Hudson and Marina Diamantis), celebrity followers (Lemar, Alexandra Burke, David Haye), as well as Central St Martin's students, sceptical critics and the occasional fawning fan. (One guest introduced himself to Kanye with the line "I put you in a category of genius..."). After the screening, Kanye appeared on stage and launched into an enthusiastic Q&A which lasted over two and a half hours. (The crowd slowly depleted to a hardcore set of around 50.) Throughout the whole process he was open, relaxed, occasionally emotional and often very, very funny. In comparison even to the slightly truculent figure he cut at previous playbacks (see Late Registration in 2005), he seemed to be having the time of his life. Here are the 100 things we learnt during the course of the evening...

1. Runaway stars Kanye as "Griffin" and former Victoria's Secret model Selita Ebanks as "The Pheonix" [sic]. It's directed by Kanye and based on a story by Kanye, but there's an additional writing credit for music video visionary Hype Williams.

2. The film opens with Selita crashing through the atmosphere in the form of a meteorite as Kanye drives his Tatra saloon through a deer-filled forest. The car crashes, echoing Kanye's own real-life 2002 car crash that went on to inspire "Through The Wire". As an explosion goes up behind them, Kanye cradles the creature in his arms. For reasons that only Kanye will appreciate, these actions are accompanied by a voiceover in a cut-glass English accent by theatrical rap phenomenon Nicki Minaj.

3. Kanye then takes The Pheonix - Selita in falsies and feathers - home to live with him. The arrangement works out well - she seems to like sitting in Kanye's garden with his pet sheep (honestly) and assorted other avian guests. There are some complications though, such as the fact she struggles with the fine china and taps at his flatscreen TV, leading to Kanye to intone: "The first rule of this world is: Don't pay attention to anything you see in the news." She also seems to respond well to his music, writhing in time to his remix of "Power" through his Bang & Olufsen speakers as Kanye triggers samples on a decade-old Akai MPC 2000 drum machine.

4. The unlikely couple don't only stay at home - Kanye takes her out to the desert to see fireworks, a marching band perform, Klansman-esque hordes in crimson robes, carnival performers and surprisingly enough a giant papier maché head of Michael Jackson. Kanye will later explain that the hooded figures are not chosen for political reasons, but stylistic ones - predominantly that Virgil his stylist picked the right shade of red.

5. The only problem with dating a creature from another planet is that when they go to a dinner party, it can get a little awkward. To the sounds of "Devil In A Red Dress" (although Kanye may replace it with "Monster" in the final version), Kanye attends a formal dinner with twenty or so all-black guests and an all-white waiting staff. Selita struggles with champagne, but everything seems to be going OK until one of the guests decides to get a little politically incorrect. "Your girlfriend is really beautiful". Pause. "Do you know she's a bird?"

6. As "Runaway" plays (the song Kanye debuted to huge acclaim at the MTV awards), the guests become the "douchebags" mentioned in the song and offer themselves a toast. Things take a turn for the worst however when the main course is served up: Selita reacts in horror as the poultry course is served. Kanye retaliates by breaking into song and calling on a flock of ballerinas (dressed all in black) to assist him for a full-on version of "Runaway". As the version is extended over several minutes, we're treated to a lengthy extract where the dancers perform. Crack-obsessed rapper Pusha-T's rhymes about being "young rich and tasteless" have never sounded better than when accompanied by interpretative dance in a tutu.

7. We cut away from the dinner to see the couple sitting outside gazing up at the sky. In the most Moonwalker-esque moment so far, The Pheonix reveals that, not only has she learnt English but that the statues present on Earth are not stone carvings but "Pheonixs turned to stone". She then says something that obviously is close to Kanye's heart. "What's the one thing I hate most about this world. Anything that's different you try to change". Kanye and Selita argue, with her talking about how she needs to "burn" and he reluctant to let her leave. They kiss.

8. Kanye wakes up on the roof of his appartment - wearing a gold-lined suit and a deft pair of possibly D&G slip-ons. He wakes up, discovers Selita has gone and runs back in the woods at full pelt (one audience member describes his furious pursuit as Tom Cruise-esque, which Kanye didn't rise to). Inside the woods Selita is already ascending, complete with a bright gold and impressively fulsome Barberella-esque breastplate. The film then returns to the original setting we began with - allowing it to be looped ad infinitum like a vintage soul sample.

During the Q&A that followed the screening of Runaway, Kanye offered an explanation of all the key elements. Here are the key revelations...

9. His mission on this project was for it to be "good to the point it's almost offensive". Which sounds ridiculous until you think that's pretty much the approach Madonna took with Like a Prayer.

10. He loves the idea that you get the music video at the same time as the music, so the two become inseparable. "When do you ever get the song and the visuals at the same time?"

11. Bringing the project to the screen has not been without difficulties. "People looked at me like I was crazy," he explained when he first brought up the concept of a 35-minute film accompanying his work.

12. So, choreographer Yemi Akinyemi, how tricky is Kanye to work with? "This guy is very hard to work with. Extremely hard. It's his vision. He won't let you sleep."

13. Kanye talked repeated about "crashing real culture and pop culture" together, merging the art world and the real world. He also talked about how in the art world, the perception of luxury is that that is rarified thing where "genius is the highest point on the totem pole" and how the opposite is true of the pop world, seeking commercialism.

14. The film will be packaged with the album in November, but in under a fortnight's time it will be transmitted in full on TV where it will simultaneously premiere on the big three American music networks. It will also be uncut.

15. Kanye sought to make it so that at any point in the film it could be a still - comparing it to a Tumblr account or frames of a graphic novel.

16. Kanye tried to have someone else direct it, but found taking direction frustrating. When directors asked him to emphasise certain elements ("It needs to be a dream" was one of the key concerns) he decided to do it his own way.

17. Kanye is keen to make sure it's not seen as a political work - the all-white waiting staff is apparently just a visual decision, he talks about using colour like a kid's box of crayons and the vivid crimson Klansmen's robes are simply Virgil Abloh. He wanted to return to a childlike innocence "before you're taught how not to be". "Mike had that struggle," he admits. Assuming he was talking Jackson the crowd nodded along, before Kanye added "Tyson," which elicited a ripple of laughter. "All Mikes had that trouble."

18. "Just being classified under 'hip-hop' puts me at an unfair advantage. It's like Jordan playing in high school'. In much the same way, the fact he's not from New York is also a huge factor. "I'm the first everything from Chicago... except president"

19. Despite the hugely successful launch of his music video for " Power", he now finds it too difficult to watch. "CGI drove me crazy... it devastates me. Since when did phoenixes have black wings?"

20. Best quote of the evening? "Hip-hop is like black semen. Anything it connects with becomes black."

21. He described Runaway as "one of those legacy-building moments". He wants it to be a physical thing, pointing out that despite the brilliance of Beyonce and Gaga's videos, there are just "four-minute blasts". He wants something that can loop indefinitely or perhaps be "the last option on your TV at the hotel before the porn".

22. In answer to the question "Have you always thought you would be so successful?" the reply was short and to the point: "Yes, I did."