Editorial : Crossing musical genres, Kid Cudi appeals to SU’s broad tastes

Bringing Kid Cudi for the 2011 Block Party marks a huge success for University Union and proves the organization listens to the suggestions of the student body. UU also showed foresight in opening 2,000 more seats in the Carrier Dome for the concert.

Throughout Block Party’s past three years, UU brought in artists who cater to certain musical interests. Cudi’s music, on the other hand, spans a variety of genres and tastes.

Three years ago, Sean Kingston and Fergie served a relatively limited, pop-loving demographic. Markedly different, Ben Folds and Guster are certainly beloved, but neither had recently released an album, and they left a large part of campus dissatisfied. Drake’s name exploded over the summer, but when he played at Syracuse University last spring, many were still focused on criticizing his former stint on the Canadian teen-drama ‘Degrassi’ and were skeptical. He also had yet to release his own album.

In addition to offering carefully constructed lyrics, Cudi fuses a variety of genres — rock, rap, hip-hop and electronic instrumental — that have garnered enough student interest to get him on the UU Block Party survey for a number of years. Other styles that hit their height in the passed six months, namely mashup and dubstep, have included and reinvented tracks off Cudi’s first album. Having released an album only months ago, Cudi is still very relevant on the music scene.

The fact that rumors leaked about Cudi performing at Block Party weeks before the announcement shows students were eager to believe he would perform on campus. Cudi has performed twice already at Cornell University, and this year’s Block Party shows SU’s spring concert can hold up to other colleges’ spring celebrations.