Credit: Alamy

Kanye West and Kid Cudi have experienced both a thriving and rocky relationship over the years, going from beefing to collaborating on their joint album Kids See Ghosts. Undoubtedly, one of their most fruitful pieces of work was on Ye’s classic 2010 album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

As well as uncredited vocals on the epic ‘All of the Lights’ alongside Rihanna, Elton John, Alicia Keys and John Legend, Cudi’s crown jewels moment landed on ‘Gorgeous’, which also featured Raekwon. It’s a tune that lives long in the memory of Cudi himself who dared to call the track one of the best beats Kanye West ever produced.

Kid Cudi overheard the song for the first time when he was hanging around the studio one day in Hawaii. It didn’t take long for him to realise that it was a classic Kanye West instrumental, comparing it to one of the best beats he made for Jay-Z on 2000’s The Dynasty: Roc La Familia album.

“‘Gorgeous’ was one of those records that, as soon as I heard the beat, I was like, ‘Man, this is the one. This is that ‘This Can’t Be Life’ Kanye beat. This is that classic Ye beat. I want to be on this,'” he told MTV. “I came up to him, and I was like, ‘Man, are you working on this record? Are you working on this beat?’ He goes, ‘Yeah… do you got an idea for it?'”

Kid Cudi admitted he was “lying like a motherfucker” when he said he had an idea for the track; he simply loved the song and was willing to improvise in order to become a part of it. As a result, he came up with the now-memorable hook, in which he sings, “Ain’t no question if I want it, I need it/ I can feel it slowly drifting away from me/ I’m on the edge, so why you playing? I’m saying/ I will never ever let you live this down, down, down.”

The Cleveland rapper explained that whenever Kanye West puts an idea out into the world, he just tries his best to make his part fit into the mix. “That’s always our collab formula, and that’s just how ‘Gorgeous’ came about,” he said. “He just kind of told me what he was trying to say, I threw out some words, we rearranged words, and we came out with a bunch of different options before we come up with the hook.”

Kid Cudi released three albums on Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Music label, Man on the Moon: The End of Day, Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager and Indicud, collaborating countless times in their careers. The pair have fell out and made up throughout their lives, with Cudi comparing their relationship to brothers. “Siblings hurt you the most,” he said. “So you go through things, but family is always there.”