Kid Cudi – The Kid Stay in the Picture

Not so long ago, everything was fucked for Kid Cudi. What a difference a few years make.

- By Clover Hope. Photographs by Norman Jean Roy

Kid Cudi is standing in front of a jumbo screen at the home of the New York Mets, watching a stadium full of fanatics chant his name. He hasn't toured in five years, and he forgot how much he needed this feeling.

Not just the idolatry but the physical connection with fans that's kept him alive all these years. Night after night this summer, he'll feel it again when he embarks on a twenty-seven-city world tour, an ambitious, theatrical exhibition combining his love of singing and acting into a concert that's romantic and "trippy as fuck." It's day one of Governors Ball, and thousands of music lovers have descended upon Citi Field to watch Kid Cudi headline. For him, the show is a warm-up for his upcoming tour, To the Moon, but my evening has been decidedly grounded. I'm trying to locate his team, and it's taken an hour of phone calls and texts before I'm finally whisked into a golf cart and escorted to the side of the stage, minutes into Cudi's opening song.

It's a whole other world up here, removed from the sardine can of screaming kids, drunk and high, elbow to elbow, happily singing along to "Sad People" (a hopeful anthem). Above all, it's validation on a massive scale.

The stadium is a sea of swaying arms illuminated by houselights, larger than life. The lyrics are indistinguishable, and the sound is just a wall of vibrations. A glimpse at the teleprompter in front of me reveals what Cudi is singing: "Close call, life on the edge/Ah, when the time comes, I'll find peace." And now the crowd is chanting his name again. "CUH-dee! CUHdee!" It's an outpouring of unconditional love normally felt only by gods, musicians, and babies in their first hour of life.