Kid Cudi has teamed up with DJ and Bape founder Nigo for a brand new single called ‘Want It Bad’ – listen to it below.
Produced by Pharrell, it’s the second preview of Nigo’s upcoming album, ‘I Know Nigo’. The first track to be released from the project was last month’s A$AP Rocky-featured ‘Ayra’.
On the euphoric ‘Want It Bad’, Cudi celebrates his successes and the grind it took to get to this point: “Lives fast, with high hopes/ Story of a kid who was feelin’ low/ To the life of me, lemme set the scene/ On my grind, I work hard/ Lord hit me, woah, tell ’em it’s a new mould/ Walk into a different zone, doin’ the impossible/ Too incredible.”
Arriving with a flashy video shot in Paris, you can check out the Harrison Boyce-directed clip below:
Nigo first announced the forthcoming album back in December, revealing that the project was on the way and that he’d signed to Steven Victor’s Victor Victor Worldwide label, a joint venture between Victor and Universal Music Group.
Guest appearances will include Pharrell, Kid Cudi, A$AP Rocky, Lil Uzi Vert, Pusha T, Tyler, The Creator, Fam-Lay and Teriyaki Boyz, with more to be announced.
Outside of his work as the head of the streetwear brand A Bating Ape, Nigo has long had an interest and association with the world of music. He is the DJ for hip hop collective Teriyaki Boyz, who released debut album ‘Beef or Chicken’ in 2005 and follow-up ‘Serious Japanese’ in 2009.
Numerous artists that will feature on Nigo’s forthcoming album have appeared on previous Teriyaki Boyz cuts – Williams on ‘Cho L A R G E’ and ‘Work That!’, Pusha T and Fam-Lay on a remix of ‘Tokyo Drift (Fast & Furious)’.
‘Want It Bad’ is Cudi’s first new music of 2022. His last album was 2020’s ‘Man On The Moon III: The Chosen’.
In a four-star review of the album, NME‘s Will Lavin called it a “cinematic masterstroke that electrifies the senses at every turn”.
The review continued: “Kid Cudi gives us every part of himself, laying out his insecurities and inner demons in the hope that it might help someone else, his words etched into a vivid backdrop of intoxicating melodies and palatial riffs. No one does mood music quite like Cudi.”
In December, the vinyl version of the album broke a US chart record, re-entering the Billboard chart at Number Four, surpassing its previous peak of Number 10. In the week beginning December 17, the album sold 42,000 copies, 41,500 of which were on vinyl.
According to Chart Data, this means the album has broken the record for biggest vinyl sales week for both a male artist and a rap album in Nielsen history.
Meanwhile, Cudi has revealed plans to drop two separate albums this year, saying he has some “tasty surprises”.