Kid Cudi has succeeded in his goal of becoming the Kurt Cobain of this generation. He both has respect from the current icons in hip hop, and has also single handedly saved an entire generation. Kanye has called him the most influential artist of the past 10 years, Pharrell has called him a GOAT with melodies and a “timeless alien,” and half of Travis Scott’s name is an ode to Cudi’s birth name, Scott. But to really understand Cudi, you have to look at the people that were teenagers during Cudi’s rise. Pete Davidson, Kevin Abstract, and Travis Scott have both explicitly said that Kid Cudi saved their lives, while people like Logic and Lil Yachty heavily attribute their ability to express emotion due to Cudi’s innovation. Jaden Smith also credits Cudi for changing his life and recalls the moment he realized that was a universal feeling for Cudi, “I thought it was just me and my brother for a while. Then I got older and started going to festivals and then I realized, oh man, everybody has felt that from Cudi. Everybody says that Cudi saved their life. Everybody had that same experience listening to Cudi.” Kid Cudi’s produced a plethora of classic material that strikes a chord with his audience, but I’m here to talk about his magnum opus, “Pursuit to Happiness”.
For a song that has only ever been on the Billboard 100 for three weeks, “Pursuit of Happiness” has had an enormous amount of success, including going 5 times platinum in the US. It’s a fairly straightforward track, both lyrically and sonically. The instrumental is full of these bombastic, warped synth melodies mixed with some light piano and driving electronic drums. MGMT also provides some truly incredible guitar work during the bridge that just pulls the emotion out of the listener. Lyrically, the song is a self-aware look into escapism, specifically through partying and drugs. But the beauty behind this track is how the lyrics are actually worded so they can relate to just about anything the listener is going through.
You can easily take it on the surface level with the self-aware escapism partying that the verses entail. It’s still a really great song for that moment. When you’re listening to the song in the concert and have thousands of people singing every word, this is the meaning. When you’re listening to it with your friends late at night after a day of hanging out, this is the meaning. When you listen to this song late at night as a nostalgic trip, this is the meaning. Sure, none of these meanings involve purposely using drugs to escape, but the overarching meaning of trying to enjoy the moment for the moment itself is here. It encourages us to take a break from worrying about the future and to just live. But for as perfect as this song is at your best, it fits just as well when you're at your worst.
Instead of looking at the reckless optimism in the lyrics, it can also read as someone trying, but failing to actually better themselves. Looking at the reckless optimism focuses on the verses, but the depressing aspects are the chorus. The hook goes, “I’m on the pursuit of happiness, and I know. Everything that shine ain’t always gonna be gold. Hey, I’ll be fine, once I get it. I’ll be good.” Sure, it sounds positive, but when you don’t have the thing to look forward to, it gets dark. How do you know when you’ll be fine if you don’t know what you’re looking for? How are you supposed to live life to the fullest when no one wants to create memories with you? How do you pursue happiness in a career when your ideal career field is currently nonexistent? It just leads you down a rabbit hole of realizing that your life isn’t up to par with what you think it should be, or that the people around you might not be working on themselves to the same level, or how mindlessly it seems like a lot of people go through life.
“Pursuit of Happiness” is a song that defined this younger millennial/on the border with the Gen-Z group of kids that have gone through similar things Cudi is talking about. There isn’t another song I can think of that balances the exuberance and the dismal outlooks on life simultaneously. It’s the only track that can work just as well in the car with your friends one day, and then failing to hold back tears in the shower the next. This song especially, but Kid Cudi as a whole, is the artist that’s there whenever you’re alone. If you have nobody to chase the pursuit of happiness with, Cudi’s there with you, no matter where you are. There are plenty of other Kid Cudi tracks that kept this generation alive; including “Mr. Rager”, “Erase Me”, “Just What I Am”, “Day n Nite”, “Up Up & Away”, "Soundtrack 2 My Life", “The Void”, “Reborn”, and so many more, but “Pursuit of Happiness” will be his legacy and go down as one of the most important tracks of the past couple decades.
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