Schnitzler & Kid Cudi

When reading Lieutenant Gustl by Arthur Schnitzler, modern rap music is probably not the first thing that’ll come to most people’s mind, but as I read the text I couldn’t help but be reminded of the song ‘GHOST!’ by Kid Cudi, released over a hundred years after Schnitzler’s classic. “Gotta get it through my thick head/I was so close to being dead, yeah” is how the song opens and Cudi continues by musing on the fact that he has continually failed to learn from his lessons in life. There is no sense of growth at the end as he seems convinced that people don’t understand him as well as being out of place in the world as a whole. Thinking about the two more thoroughly, I found myself pondering how many ideas that I share with artists that I personally admire and the connection that this creates with their work despite having never met or conversed with them in the flesh. There is something wonderful about the notion of Schnitlzer, a man of wealth and education, and Kid Cudi, a man who came from a working class family and had some run-ins with the law, sitting down to create two pieces of art that while on the surface are completely dissimilar, share many of the same tenets underneath.