Kid Cudi drops new album on iTunes in surprise release

Rapper Kid Cudi has followed in Beyonce's footsteps by releasing his new album online without any publicity fanfare.

The Day 'n' Nite hitmaker took to his Twitter.com blog on Monday night (24Feb14) to count down to a mystery "launch", sharing a bizarre out-of-this-world message which read: "Tickets to Copernicus Landing will be available for purchase via iTunes in the next 2 hours.

"We will be boarding at 12am Eastern/9pm Pacific Time, and launching shortly after, so pack up and stay tuned to this feed for the link!"

Two hours later, he simply tweeted, "BOARDING!" alongside a link to iTunes.com, where his latest studio project, Satellite Flight: The Journey to Mother Moon, was available to purchase.

Cudi had previously mentioned plans for a February (14) release, but no official date had been set for his first album since leaving Kanye West's GOOD Music label last year (13).

He later returned to Twitter.com to thank fans for their positive feedback, writing, "Are we enjoying the ride everyone? I am! I love u all so much, I do it all for u, forever."

Cudi has plenty to celebrate this year (14) - he is currently promoting the upcoming release of his new street racing movie Need For Speed, in which he stars alongside Breaking Bad's Aaron Paul, and he has also just landed a role in the long-awaited Entourage film.

Beyonce pulled a similar release stunt in December (13) when she sent fans into a frenzy by dropping her self-titled album on iTunes.com without any prior notice or promotion.