JID Satisfies Generations Old and New as One of the Game’s Great Storytellers

JID isn’t in the mood for grandiosity. Phoning in from Los Angeles’ Jon & Vinny’s restaurant on a humid August afternoon, the East Atlanta native refuses to take himself too seriously, opting instead for a practical career bucket list. “I’m not trying to be the most famous person,” he says. “I’m just trying to get my stories off and see where that ends me at.” A half-a-decade after dropping his major label debut, JID’s still got personal goals and a tale to tell. Back when SoundCloud rap was still a pejorative, JID, 31, emerged as an antithesis. A flurry of elaborate flows, dense rhyme schemes and inventive wordplay. In 2017, he joined J. Cole’s Dreamville Records in a joint venture with Interscope Records before unloading The Never Story, his major label debut album that promptly inspired Kendrick Lamar comparisons. The following year, JID dropped his critically acclaimed sophomore album, DiCaprio 2. Over the next two years he served up stellar verses on Dreamville’s Revenge of the Dreamers III and received a Grammy nomination for his contributions to ROTDIII. These days, JID’s balancing an increased global profile with victorious bouts of Madden, intense studio sessions and some fishing. “[I’m] just trying to find a little sense of serenity,” he explains. “But for the most part, it’s just me trying to figure out the next step.”