The Forever Story - JID

REVIEWED: September 2, 2022

I have always enjoyed JID’s flow–I discovered him through Dreamville and fell in love with his sound from there. I immediately felt this could be an album of the year contender. As I mentioned before, JID has a very addicting flow about him. There are many rappers who don’t necessarily just rap about shallow topics and indulge in deeper storytelling. Some of them are not able to keep me very engaged in their songs. At times, it can feel like they are just talking over a beat. JID is able to capture my attention throughout the entire project. The factors that contribute to this are the flow switches that he implements. If it felt that the track was growing flat, he immediately brought the energy back. On The Forever Story, JID indulges in stories about his family life, and he also makes an ode to his past football endeavours. His storytelling ability is very captivating. From this project, we get a deeper look at the inner workings of JID’s mind and a more expansive perspective on his past. The general production of the entire album is great. The beats are very fitting on each song, and they complement his style of rapping here quite well. The feature line-up was very impressive: 21 Savage, Lil Wayne, Ari Lennox, Lil Durk, EARTHGANG, and many more incredibly talented artists on this project, enhancing each song they graced. JID has such a unique voice and sound. I was excited every time the songs transitioned because most songs were enjoyable to listen to. The use of background vocals is always a pleasant addition for me. This tool is prevalent on Bruddanem, Kody Blu 31, and Sistanem. The correct background vocals can greatly strengthen the rapper’s presentation, and on an already great JID project, it only made it better. I generally have positive things to say about the project, but there is one slightly negative aspect. Sistanem felt like it was too long; I liked the song, but I am usually not a fan of songs that reach the five or six-minute mark. For this reason, it doesn’t have much replayability for me. Otherwise, there are not many cons to the album. Some people may feel that his flow does not change much, but I feel he adapts to each new beat and moulds his sound accordingly. In terms of rollout, I really enjoyed listening to Surround Sound and Dance Now as rollout singles. They got me really into the overall sound of the project to come and made me hungry for more. When contrasted with elaborate rollouts like Kanye West’s Donda, this rollout was indeed lacklustre. But for me, because I already really liked JID, I was excited regardless. After listening to this project, I didn’t have any intellectual awakening or anything, but I did really enjoy it. I added most of the songs to my playlists. All in all, I would consider it an engaging album. I really enjoyed The Forever Story. I definitely consider it a contender for album of the year because of the freshness and vitality that it brought to the rap genre this year. Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed the review. See you next week!