Like fellow G.O.O.D. Music artist Common, Kid Cudi is trying his hand at acting. Cudi, who’s Man on the Moon: The End of Day album is due to drop at the end of the summer, scored a lead role in HBO’s new series How to Make It in America.

Directed by Julian Farino; the brillant mind behind Sex and the City, Entourage, and The Sopranos, and produced by Mark Wahlberg, Cudi will make his acting debut as Domingo Dean. “I have a lead role. My character’s name is Domingo Dean. I actually named my character after both of my brothers - Dean, who lives in Phoenix, being one of them, and Domingo” he told The Arizona Republic.

The rapper intends to stray away from rapper-turn-actor’s like 50 Cent who played a rapper based on himself in Get Or Die Tryin’. In fact Cudi wants to completely disassociate Scott Mescudi (his real name), the actor, from Kid Cudi, the rapper. “It has no reference to my music. It was important to me early on to branch away from music” the rapper explained. “When we were developing my character with the writers, I was telling them, ‘Man, I don’t want to be anything that has to do with music,’ just because that’s not really acting.”

How to Make it in America is due to air before the year is out. Be sure to check it out and support the ‘Man on the Moon’.

-Khari Clarke