After announcing his next album would be titled Man On The Moon III: The Chosen back in October in a nostalgic promo video, fans were surprised that the next piece of news from Kid Cudi confirmed that the album would be in their hands in just a matter of days. The Ohio rapper revealed the third installation of the Man On The Moon series would touch down in early December and just a few days after revealing its cover and tracklist, the album is here and it boasts an interesting and unexpected collaboration between Cudi, Pop Smoke, and Skepta.
The track features drill-heavy production, something that Pop Smoke popularized during unfortunately short career. Despite it fitting right in Pop’s lane, Cudi and Skepta get comfortable with ease on the song, proving for a satisfactory collaboration from the trio. Prior to the song’s release, Cudi spoke to Apple Music’s Zane Lowe about making the collaboration with Pop Smoke happen.
“It was powerful because like I talked to Steven Victor [Pop Smoke’s manager] about this and he said, when he first recorded this song, he had thought of me on it,” Cudi said. “Steven had thought of me on it. The reason why I kind of got this record, Dot Da Genius and Plain Pat had worked with Pop, like before he blew up at the Brewery in New York, at Dot’s studio. And they had this record, they just never did anything with it. It was just something that Dot had on tuck, you know?” He went on to reveal that once Dot Da Genius played him the record, there was no way he could turn it down.
And I was chilling with them one day because Dot’s working on our album and he was like, “Yo, I got this record. I’m going to play it for you. Let me know what you think.” He plays this sh*t. And I’m like, “I need this. Like I need this, man.” I was like, “Nobody’s ever heard me on anything like this. Skepta sounds amazing. Pop Smoke sounds amazing. Like this would be so unexpected. I think I can be on this and I could hold it down and like do my thing.” And this is also another way I can, you know, showcase these bars.
You can listen to “Show Out” above.
Man On The Moon III: The Chosen is out now via Republic. Get it here.