The Adventures of Moon Man & Slim Shady

The Adventures of Moon Man & Slim Shady

Kid Cudi (Ft. Eminem)

“The Adventures of Moon Man & Slim Shady” finds Kid Cudi and Eminem trading verses over ominous instrumentation courtesy of Dot Da Genius. The title of the song alludes to Eminem’s Slim Shady alter-ego, as well as Cudi’s “Moon Man” moniker, which stems from his September 2009 Man on the Moon project. Cudi’s verse is a stream of consciousness narrative about a night out, whereas Em namedrops everyone from Lil Wayne to Drew Brees while addressing such topics as COVID-19 and police injustice.

Cudi hinted at a possible collaboration two months prior to the song’s release, via Twitter, but it turned out that Eminem only learned about the tweet a day later in an episode of Young Money Radio with Lil Wayne. When Cudi appeared on the show following the single’s release, he disclosed how he managed to link up with Eminem:

It was crazy ‘cause like, your interview kinda set it off, right, the shit was in motion after that.

So, I just sent it off and he responded back, they said, ‘We fuck with it’ and they were asking questions like when I was thinking about releasing it and all these things, and I was like, ‘Wow, it seems like he’s gonna write this shit, alright, okay.’

The song was announced by Cudi’s daughter, Vada, in an Instagram post on July 8, 2020. It’s also worth noting that this isn’t the first time Cudi or Em have acknowledged each other—Em gave a shoutout to Cudi on the Bad Meets Evil track “All I Think About,” from July 2015’s Southpaw soundtrack. Cudi recognized the shoutout in a Twitter post shortly afterward.

On December 10, in an interview with radio host, Zane Lowe, Kid Cudi gave further details on how his collaboration with Eminem came about.