The last proper solo Kid Cudi album was 2016’s Passion, Pain & Demon Slayin’, but fans haven’t been starved for new music since then. He and Kanye West linked up for their self-titled Kids See Ghosts record in 2018, the same year Cudi released his latest solo track, the Rampage soundtrack cut “The Rage.” Over the weekend, he hopped on Instagram Live and teased a song called “Leader Of The Delinquents,” which has now been shared in full.
He begins the first verse, “Hello friends, Cudder again / Gotta smack ’em with some sh*t before the world ends / Same old denims, worn for days / I been home makin’ jams and many wonderful waves.”
The lyric about the world ending and staying at home might make it seem like the song was written recently during the coronavirus pandemic, but this track (and those words) actually started its life many years ago. Fan-shot concert footage from 2012 shows Cudi performing an early version of the first verse and the song’s chorus, and since then, the track has undergone only minor lyrical changes. Cudi also tweeted some words from the song that year:
"Somebody better save them God, cuz young Scott Mescudi stayed on his job. The Leader Of The Delinquents" http://t.co/depnoWqt
— The Chosen One (@KiDCuDi) April 22, 2012
The good news is that there is apparently more to come from Cudi soon: He said during the aforementioned livestream, “A lot of exciting things coming up soon… in the next couple weeks, actually. So… stay tuned. A lot of awesome sh*t.”
Listen to “Leader Of The Delinquents” above.
