Album of the Week: JID delivers an instant classic with ‘God Does Like Ugly’
From his early days, JID has been determined to show the world just how gifted he is as a lyricist. Since signing to J Cole‘s Dreamville Records in 2017, the Atlanta rapper has been on a steady rise, releasing numerous albums like The Never Story, DiCaprio 2, and The Forever Story, his most complete project to date, in 2022.
His last album was a commercial success and demonstrated the extent of his songwriting abilities. It peaked at number 12 on the Billboard 200 and welcomed high-profile guests like Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def), Lil Wayne, 21 Savage, and Lil Durk. It even landed a TikTok hit a few years later with ‘Surround Sound’.
On August 8th, JID returned with his long-awaited new album, God Does Like Ugly. It was released after his GDLU (Preluxe) EP, which featured an Eminem verse. His latest project comprises 15 tracks with a hidden guest list that boasts verses from Pusha T and Malice as the Clipse on ‘Community’. Elsewhere, Westside Gunn appears on album opener, ‘YouUgly’, with Vince Staples, Ciara, Don Toliver, Ty Dolla $ign, EARTHGANG, 6LACK, and Jessie Reyez appearing throughout.
On the song ‘No Boo’, JID even challenges himself by rapping in Spanish. Alongside Reyez’s vocals, he raps, “Cállate y no cagues el momento (Papi)/ ¿Cómo no te mamas de buscar amor? (OK)/ ¿Y algunas veces no te cansas de buscar lo que está al frente de ti, de ti?”
Then on ‘Community’, he humorously takes shots at the children’s television character, Bob the Builder, spitting, “I’ll put a bullet in Bob the fuckin’ Builder/ ‘Fore they try and kick us out the building, what about the children?”
The project also includes a stacked list of producers, such as Thundercat, Vinylz, Childish Major, Lex Luger, Jay Versace, Buddy Ross, Chase B, Boi-1da, and Cubeatz. While The Forever Story was well-received by critics, JID was disappointed that it didn’t elevate his career more; with God Does Like Ugly, he’ll be hoping for better fortune.
“Starting this new journey, coming off The Forever Story, has been a very strange, productive, yet tedious process,” he said ahead of his new project, “I remember not feeling like I got what I think I deserved after that album came out and it sent me into a dark place (for maybe 20 mins cuz I ain’t no bitch).”
He elaborated how he came out of the darkness to build the album, “Fast-forward to Pluss playing [‘WRK’] for me in the studio and all I could hear was my OG coach saying, ‘Let’s go to WORK’. I live my life by the saying ‘You can only control what you can control’. So this is the first step into a new world that I control…and it’s fuckin UGLY.”
God Does Like Ugly has been years in the making, but it’s finally here. He told i-D at Paris Fashion Week, “All the Ts are crossed and my Is are dotted, so I think we in a good position to build this new world that I’ve been working on for the past couple of years.”