‘Entergalactic’ based on Kid Cudi’s music
When Animated Art Imitates Life
Netflix’s “Entergalactic” is the brainchild of Scott Mescudi — better known as enterprising artist and actor Kid Cudi — whose 2022 album of the same name serves as the basis for the new animated special, and its synthheavy music as its soundtrack.
“Entergalactic” tells the tale of young creatives Jabari (Kid Cudi), a comic-book artist, and Meadow (voiced by Jessica Williams), a photographer — two next-door neighbors in New York City whose chemistry and ambition intertwine, setting them on a rollercoaster path toward love.
“It was nice to expand upon its ideas and take it to other places, adding in characters and other storylines to see where it could go,” says Cudi, who has appeared in HBO’S “Westworld” and “How to Make It in America,” in addition to other film and television roles.
“Entergalactic” began with the music (“Angel,” “Do What I Want” and “Willing to Trust” were the first three tracks that inspired early ideas of the concept), but as the project took shape, the writing of both the animated feature and the album (which featured Don Toliver, 2 Chainz and Ty Dolla $ign) informed each other. Says Cudi: “The album itself came together rather quickly because I already knew the beats of what I wanted to cover ... then piecing [together] the story in my mind early on.”
Leave it to Kenya Barris to drive the project home. “[He] told me, this would be ill if we ran it all-animated, because that’s something that Netflix was looking for,” Cudi recalls. “So I decided to take the one animated episode that I was gonna have in my anthology and just extend the story.”