Don’t go to Los Angeles to fight your depression.
Don’t find yourself in The Standard Hotel with a deadline, staring at the ceiling.
Don’t review a
Kid Cudi concert when your mood is off and might go fully left. When there is no space between you and your damage.
L.A. is full of homeless people. Walk down Flower.
Turn on Wilshire Boulevard. Watch the frayed clothing and slow gait of
homeless neighbors, living lives in public. On the street. They look
broken. Many are in an endless conversation with imagined others.
“What’d you say to me, f*ggot?!” one of these men
screamed, as I walked to a cafe. He was following two other men who were
walking together. They were shocked, unfamiliar with the assailant
hurling slurs, and obviously a little shook. I was shook. This street,
in downtown L.A., was scary-full of people who no one looked at or
acknowledged.
But I couldn’t ignore their illness. Mainly because it
looked like a version of me in that hotel room, presiding over pot
crumbs, wondering if I could write anything worthwhile when my heart
kept sinking into the floor every time my lungs expanded. Muttering to
myself some jumbled affirmations I did not believe. I couldn’t breathe,
and I was here trying to write about a young musician exiled –
temporarily – by the same anxiety I couldn’t seem to push past.
The way we ignore mental health is a sad joke on the
collective psyche. Los Angeles, and all American cities really, are in
on this joke. But abundant fitness centers and gyms suggest our undue
emphasis on appearance and physical health has made us no happier. The
Planets of Fitness multiply, but the outlook is the same. Mentally
unstable people, zombied out and droning, surround us, sleeping on
stone. They are us. I am one.
Our mental health vocabulary comes down to a litany of lewd
and misused epithets: crazy, apeshit, weak, lame, spazz, pussy, and
sometimes “emo.” It feels isolating. It feels like every time Kanye West
speaks out of turn, confuses his mania for clarity, and he’s summarily
dismissed, roundly dogged and mocked by his homeys, otherwise ignored,
that I’m also under threat. Watching him is like reliving my 2013, when
I couldn’t get a grip on my own bipolar mania and got shut out by my
friends and family. But Kanye is an icon, a black man struggling, and if
people throw him in the trash for his health lapses, imagine what
they’d do to a lesser known person, or to an ain’t-shit writer, one of
the “diagnosed.”
Kid Cudi is an unassuming poster-child for mental
health awareness now, and his plan to perform in Los Angeles, a bed of
sin and temptation for a recovering addict and bipolar patient, first
gave me pause. His dire open letter both confessed him as a suffering,
unsure, self-harming artist and left the door open for a heroic, perhaps
unreal comeback. Meanwhile, he’s been barely holding on to his reason
for being.
Fans seem to need him at this one performance in Long Beach, to show him
their faces and scream in support as he navigates a meltdown so common
among rock stars it’s cliched, worn down to a Twitter rant and crisis
management. I need him to show up, and to know that there is life in
him, more as a comrade in Black men’s silent struggle against mental
disease than as a writer.
Interviews at the Long Beach Convention Center
So I get to know the loyalists who came for Cudi, and the even larger crowd rooting for him
Allie was diagnosed with “everything” she told me.
“ADHD, OCD, anxiety. They said I had everything when I was young.”
She’s still young, but she means when she was in high
school. And what Kid Cudi meant to her then fills her with wistful
respect as she explains.
“When people talk about Kid Cudi, I always say I love the
old stuff. Man On The Moon and all those songs. I don’t know I guess I
can just relate to that stuff more. And it’s like, you almost never hear
guys talking about stuff like that.”
Cudi’s connection to that peak nostalgia era for listeners,
at the tender age of sophomore or junior, has earned him devotees,
spiritual warriors who emote in his name. His fans don’t need him to
play demi-god, but his meaning for them is crucial: he saves lives.
Hearing their bursts of Cudi compassion reminds me I need saving.
Maybe because he functions as a totem of youthful angst and
near-suicidal frustration like so many young artists, both famous and
not. Like so many earnest prom night break-up poems. He is pop’s Catcher
In The Rye, a teen icon persona writ large on Gucci billboards and
magazine covers.
Although he’s an icon to one sect of people, how does he look to others? Especially after his Twitter outcry?
Cudi’s had to grow and mature in the spotlight, flitting
from a TV series to the aforementioned billboards to Kanye’s muse, while
issuing one emo hit after another. And at Complexcon, which trades in
youth and hype, he’s not the biggest attraction.
On The Market Floor
The Complexcon experience is an adult playground. Every
display is interactive and tactile. You can shoot baskets at Nike’s Air
Force One stop. There are life-sized NBA bobble-head dolls, and
James Harden’s
beard-mohawk 8-footer has a line of selfie-artists near it. In the
middle of this 2000-square-foot convention center is a pyramid of couch
cushions. Leisure is a currency of this consumption; the brands come to
you.
The women have nose gauges and “boxer braids.” They wear
overalls, and look like mini-Aaliyahs re-imagined in Bait gear. The men
have top braids or locs or braided twists, and peasant capris over foam
sneakers, colored hair in Dad hats and thick beards. Lennon glasses
everywhere. I don’t feel like I fit in here. This template of cool has
bypassed me, and I wasn’t even really aware. So I scan the rest of the
floor, the Re-Think High School yellow bus, the barber chair. A crowd of
kids is swarming
Takashi Murakami while a body man yells out
‘EVERYBODY STEP BACK.’ This is culture as commodity and I’m grossed out,
much more sad at every new brand alarm attacking me, and sure that I’m
in some way fueling this. So I go to the media room, the one promised
sanctuary.
Dabier is Allie’s guest. (Or she’s his, it’s not clear.)
He’s entered the media room chipper, as I’m contemplating the start of
this essay, and the next joint I’ll roll. He keeps shifting around me
and asks ‘Do you have the night time pass? For the night show? Or know
how to get it?”
I do not have the pass he needs. So I turn to my topic, and
ask if he’s here to see any of the artists on the bill. Looking for an
opening here, because I’m a professional, nevermind that I’m in hiding
because I ran into high school classmate who seems legit freaked out to
see me in Long Beach.
About one person, Dabier is lucid:
“Kid Cudi is a face of this issue in a time when people are finally talking about it.”
“Yea,” Allie’s chimed in again. “But I wonder what it’s like
for him to do a show, like, in rehab. I mean, that’s a lot of
pressure.” I crunch the free Cheetos in my fingers while they continue.
What to think of the recent troubles weighing on Scott
Mescudi and his hard-fought reputation? It’s his life imitating his art,
they admit.
Then, the young women with “Cudi” shirts. I spot them in the
crowd because they belong to a subset, an identifiable demo: Cudder
loyalists.
“Are you all here to see Cudi? I’m doing a story on him and
mental health...the first show--” and no more words can come out before:
“I’m here to support my favorite artist. He’s so brave right
now I can’t believe he’s here.” A black pleated skirt, black lipstick
and a black-on-white Cudi shirt reveal her as his aesthetic child, both
muted and uniform.
“I hope he does show,” I offer, betraying heavy anxiety. “But what makes you a Kid Cudi fan?”
“It’s really what he talks about. You don’t see a lot of
people able to go far into their thoughts like that. I know that’s not
an easy thing.”
(Is mental health a cult? Are the people who are suffering
from it creating codes to identify with each other, far from public
terms, or the shame associated with being “crazy” and “weird”?)
I veer into the
Drake feud,
and more on their Twitter chatter, hoping this will help me relate to
younger selves, more members of the secret society of people who need
help. They lash out at Drake, take up for their man Cudi and it feels
political. It’s like the popularity contest, for them, comes down to who
can be most sincerely vulnerable. There is an easy winner, in their
minds.
Travis Scott And Kid Cudi Take The Stage
Travis Scott is up first. He puts on a wild,
energetic performance. He’s climbing stage props and moshing only two
songs in, and the microphone tuning is the only thing keeping his
warbling breaths smooth upon delivery. His set precedes Kid Cudi’s, and
his presence underscores the life-saving need for brotherly compassion.
The Texan ferociously defended Cudi after the Twitter outburst, and
claimed him as an artistic mentor, a friend in distress. Travis Scott’s
music is similarly wrenching, but isn’t chained to melancholy like
Cudi’s moaning ballads. He’s the highs of rock star life, Cudi the lows.
Neither of them lacks for sincerity, though. And their respective shows
are a love-fest: two black men, who are major music stars, trading in
platonic masculine affection, lifting each other up like it ain’t no
thing.
My heart cavity swells hearing Travis’s constant call: “Can
we show some motherfucking love for my MOTHERF*CKING BROTHER Kid Cudi,
tonight y’all?” And I’m thinking “Yes, we CAN show some motherfucking
love!” but I don’t say that unless everyone else is so loud I can’t be
heard. Needing to feel love and connection is a funny thing, especially
in a lonely place. I know I am not who this event is targeted to, and
though I love the music and the culture involved, I am an outside
observer, a clinician at that. My Jordan collection isn’t hype-beasty.
It doesn’t feel cool. But Travis Scott invoking Kid Cudi’s name -- those
two black men acknowledging each other, though one was hurt -- that
felt like love. That felt like I could belong there.
Travis Scott inspires chants with today’s hits, and elates
the crowd before our ominous stress can set in. The doubt clouds hang.
Is Kid Cudi ok? Will he give us all of him? Is that ever enough?
I speak to a Danny, who claims to be an old friend of Cudi, and a drummer. He’s nervous Cudi won’t show.
“I don’t know, man, these things are pretty official. What time did it say he was supposed to go on, 8:45?”
“I think he’s at 9, but not sure.” It’s 8:39. We’re
screaming over the din of music. We’re sharing our nervousness in the
name of Cudi.
“I knew him 2008 and 2009 when things started really blowing up. It was nuts, man.”
This isn’t the “crazy” most people think of when they assign
it to their rock stars: the rush of fame consuming them and all of
their friends becoming new friends. Danny spoke of tour bus madness, of
Cudi being generally happy on the outside, but always out-of-mind or
out-of-body.
(Is this me? The gap between highs has been day-long, and
the concert crowd is stifling near the front, so I want to numb. Knees
stiffen from this work.)
While Danny recalls a time when he was backstage, I zone
out. I see a kid in a shroud of pot smoke and wander near him for an
interview that I hope will produce at least second-hand buzz. He doesn’t
give his name, says he discovered Cudi in high school (a theme) and
won’t sell anyone pot. So we just stand there and mouth lyrics from the
DJ set until the house lights dim.
Love Stream
Not many things can rile a massive crowd like the
sudden entrance of a lost star. The wave of noise that engulfs the
building when Cudi arrives is part tired sigh, part throaty yelp. He has
appeared, paradoxically, despite his mental illness and because of it.
The legions of hurt people, like me, who see in him a model of what
they’re facing quietly, have begun to speak up. This rising energy
emboldens Cudi and he says, without pretense, he loves us.
“We love you Cudi!” is the next disembodied scream. One voice shouts what all souls think.
It occurs to me that I must live-stream this moment from my
phone. That might be good reporting, for sure, but it would be better
healing and I need to feel connected. I have detached from most of life
to survive the trip to Los Angeles. I’ve set aside burdensome breaths,
and all the insecurities, even as they preach their haunted message to
me. I can’t sleep. But that doesn’t matter because people around me are
feeling loved, and crying out. So I do too.
For one solid moment, we’ve escaped the stigma. No one is
crazy. No one is uncool, alone. Cudi’s voice is labored and he forgets
lyrics to his best songs. This is a party for his return, though, so no
one’s keeping tabs either. As the live stream plays on my page, I see a
surge. Five viewers is soon 20 viewers and then 200 viewers. All at
once. The comments choke me up.
“Thank you so much for this!” “We love you Cudi” “Omg I can’t believe this? Is this real?” “Cudi you saved my life fr bro!”
My bootleg concert stream was a safe space. For a moment, I
can forget that there is a crushing pall on my life, hatched to wipe out
my existence from the inside. For a moment, I will myself to erase the
Katt Williams episodes and the Kanye West episodes and the Kid Cudi
episodes...when they became the “crazy” laughingstock. When the same
public that anointed them great, cheers their self-destruction. For a
moment, my confidence is high and not manic, and we are in a love
embrace. For a moment, the music of Chance the Rapper and Kendrick Lamar and Lauryn Hill is
cathartic and real, not a buried reminder of troubled minds in our
midst. For a moment, I can see and love even the angry, shouting man on
the street. For a moment.
Kid Cudi has a lot to be proud of. He held thousands of
minds and hearts in his stare, and allowed them to express through him
what they couldn’t express on their own. I wish I could do the same.
But I don’t try, ‘cause you’d just call me crazy.
