NEW YORK (AP) — Child Cudi is the most recent movie star being known as to testify at Sean “Diddy” Combs ′ intercourse trafficking trial in New York.
The favored melodic rapper is anticipated to take the stand Thursday and inform the jury about his temporary relationship 14 years in the past with Combs’ ex-girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie.
In keeping with court docket filings and testimony, the Cassie-Cudi relationship, which grew out of the 2 engaged on music collectively, despatched Combs into rages through which he beat her. Prosecutors contend that Combs was so upset he organized to have Cudi’s convertible firebombed.
Combs has pleaded not responsible to prices that he leveraged his standing as an influence dealer to abuse girls.
Right here’s what it’s essential know in regards to the 41-year-old Cudi, whose authorized identify is Scott Mescudi.
Who’s Child Cudi?
The Cleveland born-and-raised, skinny-jean sporting, Grammy Award-winning rapper has lengthy been celebrated for his various hip-hop, emotional music that effortlessly weaves genres collectively in shocking methods.
Music blogs and different tastemakers rapidly caught on to Cudi’s 2007 single, “Day ‘n’ Nite,” with its distinctive singsong fashion that later appeared on his blockbuster 2009 debut, “Man on the Moon: The End of the Day” as “Day ‘n’ Nite (Nightmare).” The album’s hits included “Pursuit of Happiness (Nightmare)” and is well one of the crucial influential rap data of the final 20 years. In September, “Day ‘n’ Nite” was licensed diamond by the Recording Trade Affiliation of America.
Cudi started as one thing of a protégé of Kanye West, when the then-uncontroversial rapper signed Cudi to his G.O.O.D. Music label in 2008. Cudi left in 2013.
He’s featured on Jay-Z’s “The Blueprint 3” and West’s landmark “808s & Heartbreak.” Cudi has all the time had a watch and ear towards innovation. In 2022, his album “Entergalactic” was launched alongside a Netflix adult-animated romantic comedy of the identical identify, which he informed The Related Press allowed him to “explore the abstract.”
What’s Child Cudi’s involvement with Combs and Cassie?
Cassie, whose authorized identify is Casandra Ventura, has been the trial’s central witness along with her accounts of years of violence and sexual abuse.
She testified that Combs organized for her to satisfy Cudi in 2011 to work on music. The 2 started relationship quickly after, and she or he stated she bought a burner telephone to speak with Cudi in secret.
Cassie stated she and Combs had damaged up on the time, though they nonetheless engaged in intercourse events that Combs orchestrated. It was throughout one among these that Combs checked out her telephone and realized of the Cudi relationship, Cassie testified.
In response, she stated he lunged at her with a corkscrew and kicked her within the again.
When Cassie and Combs have been overseas in 2012, Combs informed her that Cudi’s automobile could be blown up and Combs needed Cudi’s mates there to see it, Cassie testified.
On Tuesday, Cassie’s mom, Regina Ventura, testified that Cassie informed her Combs was so offended about her relationship with Cudi that he deliberate to launch sexually express movies of her and ship somebody to harm Cassie and Cudi.
Cassie testified that Cudi came over her at her mom’s Connecticut dwelling round Christmas in 2011 and she or he broke up with him, fearing for each of their security.
The Related Press doesn’t usually identify individuals who say they’ve been sexually abused except they arrive ahead publicly, as Cassie has.
Child Cudi’s newer music, and appearing
His newest album, “Insano,” arrived final yr. Quickly after its launch, “Insano (Nitro Mega),” a accomplice document that featured Wiz Khalifa, Pusha T, Steve Aoki and extra, arrived.
On Could 9, Cudi launched his newest single, “Neverland.” A brief movie of the identical identify, directed by Ti West and produced by Monkeypaw Productions, will premiere at Tribeca Movie Pageant this June.
Additionally in Could, Cudi formally launched his new attire label, WZRD.
Daring trend has been a longtime ardour for Cudi; the rapper has partnered with manufacturers resembling BAPE and Adidas. He collaborated with the late designer Virgil Abloh, and in 2021 channeled Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain by sporting an Abloh-designed Off-White floral gown on stage at “Saturday Night Live.”
Final week, he introduced his engagement to menswear designer Lola Abecassis Sartore.
Cudi can be a celebrated actor, having appeared in a lot of characteristic movies and tv packages. They embrace 2020s “Bill & Ted Face the Music,” the 2021 Netflix unique “Don’t Look Up,” the HBO sequence “How to Make It in America” and the shiny “House Party” remake in 2023, through which he performed it straight as an anti-social lurker who doesn’t like events (“too much laughing”) and solely needed to go to provide his pal LeBron a poem, as The Related Press’ Lindsey Bahr wrote in her evaluation.
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Related Press writers Michael R. Sisak and Andrew Dalton contributed to this report.
