Day ‘N’ Nite (Nightmare)

Day ‘N’ Nite (Nightmare)

Kid Cudi

Cudi’s first ever single, released in 2008, and to date his biggest track. It reached #3 on the US Billboard Charts and has sold over 5 million copies in the US.

Cudi said of the track:

My uncle that I lived with passed in 2006. We were actually beefing because he forced me out the house when I didn’t have another situation set up, so I was bitter. I never apologized for it, and that kills me. That’s why I wrote ‘Day ’N’ Nite.’

The track serves as Cudi’s justification for this “beef” with his deceased uncle, and the way he deals with the pain of their unresolved issues. The drugs help him “run,” but it’s the madness of the industry and making it that caused the problems in the first place.

In a 2012 interview with Complex, Cudi also disclosed:

A lot of people don’t know this but Geto Boys‘My Mind Playing Tricks On Me’ is the song that inspired 'Day 'N’ Nite.‘ 'My Mind Playing Tricks On Me’ is my favorite song in the world. I love it so much I wanted to make my own version of it. And then ‘Day 'N’ Nite' came out of it.

The track was remixed heavily, most notably by Crookers, and 3 separate music videos were shot, one for the original song and two for the Crookers remix.

The track first appeared on Cudi’s mixtape A Kid Named Cudi and then as “Day ‘N’ Nite (Nightmare)” on his debut album, Man on the Moon: The End of Day.

Producer Dot Da Genius broke down the making of “Day ‘N’ Nite” with Genius.