Grammy-Award winning rapper and songwriter Kid Cudi has announced ‘The Rebel Ragers Tour’, hitting over 30 cities in North America including a stop in Cincinnati, OH at Riverbend Music Center on Saturday, May 16. Special guests on the Cincinnati show will include M.I.A., Big Boi, and A-Trak.
The Rebel Ragers Tour spans the full scope of Cudi’s discography, celebrating his evolution from early breakthrough records like “Day ’N’ Nite” and “Mr. Rager” to fan favorites that have shaped more than a decade of cultural impact. The tour also includes music from his latest release "Free", alongside recent standouts like the viral track “Maui Wowie,” connecting longtime fans and new listeners through a powerful live experience.
Beyond music, Kid Cudi continues to expand his creative reach, celebrating New York Times Best Seller status for his memoir Cudi and stepping onto a different stage with his recent stand-up comedy debut at Mi’s Westside Comedy Theater in Santa Monica, CA. Furthering his multi-disciplinary artistry, Cudi is set to debut his first visual art exhibition, Echoes of the Past, in Paris showcasing original works.
Scott Mescudi, professionally known as Kid Cudi, is a Grammy Award–winning musician, actor, director, author, fashion founder, and visual artist whose work has reshaped modern culture. Since emerging in 2008, Cudi has built one of the most emotionally resonant catalogs in contemporary music, creating a blueprint for vulnerability, experimentation, and genre-defying expression that continues to influence artists across generations.
His debut album, Man on the Moon: The End of Day, marked a cultural shift, introducing a new emotional language to mainstream music. Over the course of his career, Cudi has released ten studio albums, sold more than 23 million records worldwide, and maintained a rare longevity rooted in authenticity rather than trend. His influence remains active and visible, with early tracks such as “Maui Wowie” recently finding renewed life through viral momentum and reaching a new generation of listeners years after their initial release.
Cudi’s most recent album, Free, represents a confident and expansive chapter in his evolution. The project reflects an artist fully in command of his voice, balancing introspection with clarity and forward momentum while reinforcing his role as a creative who continues to grow rather than repeat himself.
Beyond music, Cudi has established a substantial career in film and television. His acting work spans HBO, Amazon, Disney, and major studios, with notable appearances in How to Make It in America, Westworld, Don’t Look Up, X, House Party, and Bill & Ted Face the Music. He has collaborated with filmmakers across the industry, including projects with A24 and Warner Bros., and starred in films that range from large-scale studio releases to critically acclaimed independent work. His Amazon documentary A Man Named Scott further offered an intimate portrait of his personal journey and creative impact.
In 2020, Cudi founded Mad Solar, his production and creative company focused on developing music, film, and television projects. He has continued to expand his storytelling through narrative short films, animation, and cross-platform releases, most notably with Entergalactic, which launched alongside its Emmy-nominated animated companion on Netflix.
In recent years, Cudi has added author and visual artist to his creative portfolio. His memoir offers a deeply personal account of his life, mental health journey, and artistic evolution, further cementing his role as a voice of emotional honesty. As a visual artist, he has debuted original work in gallery settings, translating the same introspective themes that define his music into a new medium.
ABOUT M.I.A
Change precipitates growth. MIA exists in a constant state of change reflective of her own insatiable creativity, acute internal compass, and a perennial place ahead of the curve socially, aesthetically, and musically. As such, she consistently sets the pace for culture.
Catalyzed at the crossroads of art, activism, and fashion, her seminal breakthrough album KALA arrived with the force of a tsunami in 2007. An insurgent pastiche of hip-hop attitude, world music connectivity, high fashion disruption, and radicalized consciousness, Rolling Stone and NME both christened it one of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time,” while Spin touted it among “The 300 Best Albums of the Past 30 Years.” It earned a gold certification and spawned the quadruple-platinum generational anthem “Paper Planes.” Indicative of its impact, the mega-smash appeared in the Academy® Award-winning Slumdog Millionaire directed by iconic filmmaker Danny Boyle. Fellow revolutionaries Tom Morello and Boots Riley covered it as part of Street Sweeper Social Club, while Rihanna performed it in a popular live medley. Famously, T.I., JAY-Z, Kanye West, and Lil Wayne sampled it as the hook for the multiplatinum smash “Swagga Like Us,” taking home the GRAMMY® Award for “Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group.”She parlayed this momentum into 2010’s MAYA, which marked her first Top 10 debut on the Billboard Top 200. Following the 2013 opus Matangi and the banger “Bad Girls,” AIM closed out 2016 on various year-end lists, and Q dubbed it “her best outing since 2007’s Kala.” Along the way, she collaborated with the likes of Madonna, Nicki Minaj, and Travis Scott, to name a few.
Casting just as wide of a shadow over fashion, Versace, Marc Jacobs, and more have sought her out for collaborations. Recognizing her impact, Vulture hailed her as “a precursor for the various fashion-rap acts (Travis Scott, Lil Uzi Vert, Playboi Carti, and above all A$AP Rocky).” An outspoken humanitarian, she has supported various global causes to build schools, stand up for victims of atrocities, and support impoverished communities.
In 2022 M.I.A. released MATA, showing another side of herself altogether.
“This album was actually written in a very peaceful place,” she observes. “COVID happened, and I’m sure there were expectations for me to make a violent and aggressive record, but you already have that in my catalog. If you want to protest, if you want to speak up, or if you want to fight, all of those songs are there—and they always will be. MATA is about rising above any earthly problems and social problems. I took a step back and looked at it from a bigger perspective. No matter what religion you ascribe to, the message is ultimately the same. I create out of chaos. Everything that’s creative and created is god, and everything that’s destructive and destroys is god too. To me, this record is complete acceptance of the divine. Whatever happens is what happens. I approached this music as if I was meant to make it.”
MATA certainly sounds meant to be. Writing throughout 2020 and 2021, M.I.A. still “used her four-track and old laptop” and personally produced various tracks. At the same time, she collaborated with the likes of Pharrell, Diplo, Rex Kudo, Switch, Troy Baker, T-Minus, and more. Beyond recording at home, she also worked out of Rick Rubin’s Malibu studio.
Ultimately, the album represents two halves of her vision.
“On some songs, I’m trying to escape and come back to my old style of writing and production,” she reveals. “50% of the album is me holding on to what I am. The other half of the record is joining a bigger discussion about what I am, because it’s not about the same comfort zone.”
That brings us to the first single “The One.” Co-produced by T-Minus and Kudo, the upbeat groove underlines bold and buoyant bars as she examines a moment of transformation. Leaning into the beat, she promises, “This time I’m gonna flip the whole thing. New era I’m gonna bring it.”
“It’s about the challenge of making this record,” she muses. “It was raw ego versus embracing changes you have to embrace when it’s not about you. That happened to me. I had an awakening. It wasn’t something I was looking for. I was minding my own business. Boom, out of nowhere, I had this spiritual experience, and it turned my world upside down creatively. That’s where I’m at now.”
ABOUT BIG BOI
Atlanta indisputably set the pace for modern hip-hop. However, Big Boi set the pace for Atlanta, and by proxy, the culture at large. If the genre of hip-hop ever gets its own "Rap Mount Rushmore," a legacy as the region's foremost wordsmith, funkiest gentleman, and resident ATLien certainly guarantees a place for the diamond selling artist, rapper, songwriter, record producer, actor, philanthropist born Antwan André Patton. Big made history as the preeminent spitter of the Dungeon Family and one-half of OutKast. The legendary duo sold 25 million albums and garnered seven GRAMMY® Awards, becoming the first and only hip-hop artist in history to win the GRAMMY® for "Album of the Year" upon release of their 2003 RIAA Diamond-certified Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year). Big Boi made his proper introduction as a solo artist in 2010 with Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty. A modern classic, it captured #3 on the Billboard Top 200 and landed on Pitchfork's"100 Best Albums of the Decade 'So Far'." Following a succession of high-profile album releases, Big Boi released his most recent album Boomiverse in 2017. The smash single "All Night" sound tracked a high-profile Apple Animoji commercial, blew up radio, and clocked 40 million streams within a year. The song also hit the Top 30 on the pop chart and Top 10 at Rhythmic. In addition to his music career, the Hip-Hop legend recently announced that he is starring in upcoming Hulu series, Big RV Remix, a renovation-based series in which he and business partner, Janice Faison, renovate, redo, and remodel trailers for small businesses some of the world’s biggest celebrities 125%
ABOUT A-TRAK
A-Trak, a.k.a. Alain Macklovitch, is the quintessential cultural connector. His 25-year career has seen him take turns as an internationally renowned DJ, World Champion turntablist, founder of New York’s celebrated Fool’s Gold Records, documentary filmmaker, and half of the Grammy nominated duo Duck Sauce as well as The Brothers Macklovitch (with his brother Dave 1 of Chromeo). He continues to reshape the very role of the DJ as tastemaker and storyteller.
