Kid Cudi Got Tattoos Of The K Records Logo And Kurt Cobain Wearing A Daniel Johnston Shirt
Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic
Kid Cudi has joined the ranks of rappers with tattoos of rock stars. Logic, you may recall, boasts Mac DeMarco and Toro Y Moi tats, while Post Malone has tributes to a whole coterie of music heroes on his body, including late rappers Lil Peep and Bankroll Fresh and rock legends Metallica, John Lennon, Elvis Presley, Dimebag Darrell, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Kurt Cobain. The late Nirvana frontman is, of course, a perennial favorite among rappers, and he has once again reared his influence with new art on Scott Mescudi’s forearm.
Cudi posted photographic evidence of the new ink on Instagram. It depicts Cobain in his outfit from the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards: sunglasses, a cardigan, and a Daniel Johnston T-shirt featuring Johnston’s iconic “Hi, How Are You” doodle. “4 Kurt and salute to Daniel,” Cudi wrote in the caption. Tattoo artist Dr. Woo also posted the image, captioning it, “Kurt in Daniel on Cudi…legends all the way round.”
Even more interesting, though, is what’s directly below the Cobain portrait: another smaller tattoo, this one depicting the logo for the influential Pacific Northwest indie-pop label K Records. Cobain himself famously had a K Records logo tattoo as well — it was his only body art — and its appearance here adds another layer of reverent fandom to Cudi’s tribute.
It also raises the question: How familiar is Kid Cudi with the K Records catalog? Given his breadth of collaborators and boundary-pushing sound, I would not be surprised to learn that he shares Cobain’s reverence for K. Does he have strong opinions about Tiger Trap? Might we anticipate a Phil Elverum collab somewhere down the line? Come to think of it, there are some similarities between Cudi and Calvin Johnston’s vocal styles…
