Music helps us get through hard times. It inspires us. It serves as an extension of ourselves and our minds. Have you ever loved an artist so much you’d do anything to show your appreciation for them? A tattoo is perhaps one of the greatest ways to show love to your favorite artist. We wanted to talk to people who have artist tattoos and hear their stories behind them. In Tattoos. No. 2, we spoke to three people who did. Merc, Keys, and Jayde share their stories.
Mercury (@magicallymerc)
Kid Cudi is an artist that many people cite as their reason for staying afloat. Two most notable examples are rapper Travis Scott and SNL comedian Pete Davidson who specifically name Kid Cudi as their reason for being alive. Kennedy, who also goes by her stage name, Mercury or Merc for short, is another person that can be added to the “Kid Cudi saved my life” list. In 2019, she tattooed the cover art to Cudi’s fourth album “Satellite Flight” on her forearm.
Like many people, Merc was first introduced to Cudi when his breakout single “Day ‘n’ Nite was released. However, she didn’t become invested until 7th grade when she heard his song “Just What I Am”.
“I remember specifically, I was on my way to school and I was on SoundCloud, and this song, “Just What I Am” came on and I literally was like what the fuck is this.”
*Laughing.*
“And it was Kid Cudi. I remember every morning I would just replay that song on the way to school every day. That’s what started my obsession. I started to listen to Indicud, the album that “Just What I Am” is on, and I just loved every song on that album and I just ventured out into all his other music and fell in love with everything else.”
What was your first impression of him?
I was like, “He likes to smoke weed.”
*Laughing.*
“And I was young so I wasn’t really hip to weed the song just sounded really good. It made me feel like- I don’t know, the way his voice sounded and the way the melody went like- it just made me feel like a whole different experience with music. I don’t know how to explain it but-“
It gave you a more personal connection?
“Yeah.”
And you’d never felt that way before?
“Mhm, lowkey gave me chills like, just hearing the melodic part of it, it just sounds so good. Yeah, so I was like, yeah I just like this guy.”
Like Kid Cudi, Merc is a rapper too. She started releasing music last year. When asked how she came up with her stage name, she says she got it from Sailor Mercury, a character on the popular 90’s anime, Sailor Moon.
“Sailor Mercury was the one character that I really connected with and I was just like alright I need to put some music under some name so I was just like alright Imma call myself Mercury because – I don’t know I just felt like I was her.”
Merc’s Sailor Mercury tattoo.
A year later she is mostly known by people as her stage name.
“A lot of people call me Merc. It just depends, whatever they like know me as honestly.”
Ever since Merc was little she would write songs and come up with ideas musically.
“I always used to write songs and stuff as a little kid. I used to just rap all the time and just do stuff.”
She began releasing music after her friend “Biskhit”, who is also an artist on Soundcloud, thought she would sound great on a song.
“She reached out to me and said, “Hey! Let’s do a song.” It was random as fuck- I used to just make mixes cause I DJ’d and stuff.”
Shortly after the exchange, her first song, “Elemental” came out. She instantly fell in love with creating music after her first collaboration.
“It comes natural kinda cause like, I would always just freestyle with my homies. Like we’d just be chilling listening to music and just freestyle over the beats. So it’s just like, actually being able to like write it down and put it over a beat, like a real beat, and just record it, send it to people, and they actually fuck with it? It just feels good.”
Coming back to Kid Cudi’s impact, Mercury has definitely had her fair share of struggles that Kid Cudi has helped her through. She recalls a time period in 2015 when she relied heavily on Kid Cudi’s fifth album, Speedin Bullets 2 Heaven, an extremely polarizing record that many people either absolutely love or absolutely hate.
“There’s this one album that everybody hates by him but I-”
Is it Speeding Bullets?
“Yes. Everybody hates Speeding Bullets but it came out in this time in my life from like early teen years to like still now, I had this illness. It’s called ulcerative colitis and back in maybe 2015, I was hospitalized all the time, I would barely go to the-“
What is the illness specifically?
“Okay so, with that it’s like, my colon, it has ulcers, like just sores, and it was just like causing me to just like poop blood and just like throw up all the time and just be in pain a lot.”
This sickness resulted in Merc being hospitalized constantly and as a result, feeling lonely.
“I was always in the hospital, I barely went to school anymore, barely hung out with my friends. It was just really hard. And… just like having no one to really connect to, like no one really understood how I was feeling and- or just like, It was really hard to express how I was feeling and just to talk to people because it’s like, no one knows what they can do. It’s not like they can just like counsel me through it,it’s just like I’m constantly going through physical pain and I just felt unhelped.”
Right when Mercury thought all hope was lost, Speedin Bullet 2 Heaven was released.
“I was ready to just like end it all, and this one night I remember, it literally just came out, like Speeding Bullets just came out. I was sitting in my tub and I just listened to the whole album straight through and it was just like- everything that he was saying in each one of the songs I related to on another level.”
She connected to Speedin Bullets even more because of the raw emotions Cudi put into the album.
“It’s just like…he was depressed and he just like expressed all of those emotions through the songs and it’s just like- I felt like he was me at that moment. Like he felt everything that I was feeling, and just like, having somebody who actually is vulnerable enough to put that in their music and just have it out and just like- to let people know that sometimes I’m not okay and…it’s okay to not be okay, you just have to like- I don’t know, you have to cope somehow and just like get through it. And just like having someone, having someone in a platform like that, like him. Kid Cudi, he’s just like, he’s up, like he’s one of the most influential rappers today and he also feels those emotions and it just helped me feel less alone and just, and I feel like everyone feels the way that I feel sometimes and it’s like, I shouldn’t give up because if he got through it I can too. So that album really like, it really just helped me continue to push through my sickness and just depression also. Like it just helped me, it’s just like…I don’t know it was a safe space I guess.”
What’s your favorite song from the album?
“Ooo, I have a lot! Fairytale Remains is one of my favorites though. It’s like one of the more happier songs on there. And it just like, it’s about love and-. But yeah, just having that is like helpful.”
Along with both she and Cudi finding themselves in depressive states, Merc can also relate to Kid Cudi’s substance abuse. As a result of her illness, she began abusing oxycodone and Percocet. This was around when she was in 8th or 9th grade.
“Dealing with that and having to come out of it, that’s how I relate to him a lot. Because I understand the pain of withdrawal and feeling hopeless. Cause you don’t have anything to really make you feel good.”
Her addiction came full circle when she tried to overdose. Her attempt to overdose was a product of many emotions she was feeling at the time. Her parents immediately revoked her prescriptions from her, a decision Merc is grateful for.
“If I would’ve successfully did that or just became hooked to a point where it’s just like I’m constantly feening for it, like that would not be good.”
Today, Merc releases her negative emotions through her music and skateboarding. She began skating along with her best friend, Jasmine, in 2017. She eventually graduated to a trick board in 2018.
“Whenever I’m down I can just go to the park and just start skating. I don’t know what about it, it’s just like, doing stuff and getting tricks and just how fye that shit looks is just so rewarding. You work so hard to just get one trick, and when you finally get it, you get so close every time it just makes you want to keep going and going. And once you finally get it it’s just like, “Yes! This is what I’ve been working for.”
Through skateboarding, Merc gained a lot of the friends she has today. These friends she gained are a pleasant turn from high school, she felt like her peers didn’t understand her because of different interests.
“I never related to anybody. Like I grew up in this predominantly black place with just like niggas.”
*Laughter*.
“I was on my whole different wave length. Like I was interested in rock music and skateboarding and shit like that.”
In addition to gaining friends with similar interests from skating, Merc also feels like she and her friend Jasmine serve as an inspiration to other female skaters.
“A lot of girls look up to us and a lot of girls are scared to skate. But once they see us doing it they’re like, “Wow! We can do it too”. We just try to encourage girls to do it, and that part helps me with coping because like, seeing other people happy because of me just makes me feel like I have a purpose and I’m just here for that reason. I’m here to just inspire and make people feel good.”
Merc is still dealing with her illness, ulcerative colitis, but it’s not nearly as bad as it was. She had a surgery that first removed her colon, then a second surgery two months later that made it possible for her to properly use the bathroom again.
After her first surgery, in the absence of her colon she had to use an ostomy bag to go to the bathroom.
“Okay so, when they removed my colon, for a little bit I had to have this like, this little bag called a ostomy bag where I would poop from there. I have a little scar from it.
*Shows scar*
“But like, this used to be like just open and have like, it was something called a stone muscle like, the little bit of my colon that they left, they have left like two inches of my colon and they just had it out and I would have a bag connected to it and just like, poop.”
*Laughter*.
The second surgery made it possible for her to use the bathroom.
“They basically took my small intestines and just like made it into a loop kind of? And just like, made to where I could like…like poop again from my butt instead of my stomach. So yeah, it’s just basically I just digest foods from my small intestines instead of both my small intestines and large intestines.”
Before these surgeries, Merc was hospitalized almost every month. Today, it has been over two years since she has been hospitalized.
Kid Cudi’s music was always there for her. Through his lyrics, she found someone who seemed to understand everything she was going through. That’s why she chose the cover art to Satellite Flight as her first tattoo.
When asked why she chose this album specifically, she says it’s because she connected to every song on the album. Her favorite being “Too Bad I Have To Destroy You Now”.
For her, the song shares a message of ignoring the hate people throw your way. Especially because those people will never express their disdain for you to your face.
“They always do it behind your back, so it’s just like…whatever, fuck em. Just like buck on them and do you. So it’s just like, that really just like, that song is like an anthem to me. It just gives me courage to just like keep going and keep doing what I wanna do.”
But it’s not just outside opinions that Mercury has to deal with, it’s internal also. Like many families Merc’s questions her decision to pursue music. She says that her mom wanted her to pursue something more conventional, such as a doctor.
Despite her parent’s worries Merc is completely confident in her artistic skills and would like to be in the music industry in some capacity. She’s currently studying music technology at Georgia State University.
“Not to be cocky or nothing but I am really good at making music and I can see myself being somewhere in the music industry. Even if it’s not just like performing like I can DJ, I can make beats, I can do anything music wise cause I’m like, just talented with music.”
In the future she’d also be interested in studying agriculture to grow medicinal marijuana. Marijuana has been an essential aid in her battle with her illness and addiction.
“I would be on so many prescription meds and they would do nothing for me. But once I smoked that blunt, like I feel good. I can do stuff like I can get up out of my bed, go out and just interact with the world.”
Merc decided to get her Satellite Flight tattoo a day after her birthday on February 21st of last year. The tattoo served as her mother’s gift to her that year, although she had no idea what Merc would decide on when she dropped her off at the tattoo shop.
“She didn’t know until I sent her a picture of the outline of it and she was like, “This is too damn big, why did you get this?” And I was like, “I mean. It’s too late now, I can’t really stop it so’. But she already knew that I wanted a Kid Cudi type Tattoo.”
After debating between a quote from the album and Satellite Flight, she decided on the latter.
“I like the solar system, I was Mercury at this point, like this makes sense.”
Mercury has three more tattoos: a spider behind her neck designed by her friend Jevonte, a Sailor Mercury tattoo in the middle of her chest, and a weed bud on her butt.
Understandably, when it comes to what piece of Kid Cudi content she thinks people should initially delve into, she says Speedin Bullets is a good place to start despite its polarizing repetition
“It’s so much variety in that album but a lot of people just don’t like it.”
Why do you think so many people don’t like it?
“Cause it’s rock music, a lot of people don’t like rock music. They’re so used to him just having like this one set style, like hip hop.”
And he was being pretty versatile on it, he tried out new stuff.
“Exactly, that’s why I love it so much because he- even if he goes out of his comfort zone he’s still so great! Like it sounds so good, like how are you this talented sir? *Laughter*. Ugh, I just need to meet him. He’s just everything bro. But yeah, I would recommend Speeding Bullet and I would tell people to listen to Speeding Bullets to Heaven, that song, like the self title song. Fairytale Remains and Embers. Those are my top three songs on that album. And they just like, they just hit different.”
Would you get another artist inspired tattoo? If so, what of?
“Absolutely! I would get um, honestly… honestly, I would get another Kid Cudi tattoo like *laughter* that, “accept yourself” one, the one that I just said. I really just like, a lot of stuff that he does and says just resonates with me. And it’s just motivation just to see someone like him come up where he came from. Dealing with all the stuff he dealt with and still be great. It’s just like inspiration, a lot of inspiration. But another artist? Um, I don’t know – all my tattoos are like really impulsive, the Kid Cudi one was the only one I thought of but my other ones just be impulsive. But if I do get another artist it would really just be random.”
Do you think that Kid Cudi will continue to be your favorite artist?
“Yes, he does not put out anything that I have not enjoyed at all. And it’s just like, he’s gonna continue making greatness so I’m not doubting him.”
[END].
*This was originally written and released in March 2020*