By the end, Cudi has renewed his lease on life “shit is gravy,” he concludes on the finale “Lord I Know.” Rager.” Over the course of the second half of The Chosen, the production palette lightens and hedges closer to the blend of indie rock, synth-pop, and hip hop that defined the first two MOTM albums. The narrative premise Man on the Moon III: The Chosen is more half-baked according to the album’s jacket copy, “in one night, must face himself again and fight to win back his soul from the evil Mr. Waluigi is the true nowhere man, without the other characters he reflects, inverts, and parodies he has no reason to exist.” “Show Out” is music, not a fictional Italian scoundrel, which means that its existence is not simply relative, but offensive.Ģ010’s Man on the Moon II successfully developed the themes of its predecessor - hedonism, fame, and depression collide - resulting in the creation of Cudi’s destructive alter-ego Mr.
The mind-boggling degrees of bastardization, which begin with Cudi’s own influence on Scott, recall “I, We, Waluigi: A Post-Modern Analysis of Waluigi” : “You invert Mario to create Wario - Mario turned septic and libertarian - then you reflect the inversion in the reflection: you create a being who can only exist in reference to others. The worst song on The Chosen is “Show Out” (featuring Pop Smoke and Skepta), which attempts to graft Scott’s style onto contemporary drill a la “GATTI,” except with a knock-off 808Melo beat.