Atlanta rapper JID released his third album yesterday. And i’ve been listening to it. Following is a brief text about JID and the new album The Forever Story. I will preface this text with some transparency and honesty – i have never actively listened to JID before, somehow he’s flown under my radar. Which made this release of new music from him, all more exciting for me, as i get to experience a whole new artist and his artistry. I came in with zero expectations, and zero knowledge of what i was going to hear – since i had no clue of JID’s existence until like yesterday when Anthony Fantano, TheNeedleDrop, wrote a tweet about listening to this new album on his segment called New Music Friday. And i figured, hey, maybe i should give it a listen aswell. So have i done.

It’s an interesting album since it has a wide variety and range in the elements featuring the album. You got a real heavy bass, that hits incredibly hard on some tracks, following piano features, and same sample as Mos Def uses in Ms. Fat Booty. And then you have wide range in the singing, from extremely quick rapping, to RnB sounding songs, some spoken word and also some gospel. This album points in every direction. Yet, it doesn’t sound strange. Somehow the tracks come together in a beautiful way and that i find very interesting and impressive.

On some songs we get this insanely heavy rap music, with extremely quick rapping on the track Can’t Punk Me (feat. EARTHGANG). This track goes very hard. And the tracks that are similar to Can’t Punk Me are the ones that i prefer on this album. I appreciate the range, width and variety of the album but i have a hard time getting into the tracks that sound more like RnB. I do however believe that this album benefits greatly from the variety of musical genres and elements as it lifts the whole experience. And however much i love the hard hitting, fast paced rap-songs, i think that for just under an hour (the lenght of the album), it might have become a bit stale.

The lyrics are sometimes very introspective and feels like pure poetry. And from time to time i thought that we had features from Kendrick Lamar, as the lyrics and the voice got into a similar range as Kendrick Lamar does. On Genius.com you’re able to read the lyrics to all the tracks to get a better understanding of the lyrics.

For me this was a great introduction to JID, and after publishing this post i will check out his two previous albums and hear what they are about. I find it hard to rate albums and give them a score, but i am sure i will get more comfortable doing it, the more i do it. I’d rate the new album from JID as a 7/10. There are parts i thoroughly enjoy and there are parts that i found rather slow. However connecting these different elements together helps to lift the overall feeling for this album. I recommend that you give it a listen!

Until next time, take care.
SLQT.