A review of Atlanta rapper JID's latest release.

By Varin S.

January 31, 2023

The Forever Story is a conscious hip-hop album released by the Atlanta-based rapper JID in August 2022. It contains 16 tracks, including a short intro and longer outro track. It serves as an origin story of JID, and discusses his upbringing, family, and involvement in African-American history. It serves as a sequel to The Never Story, JID's 2017 debut album.

The first full track, Raydar, is a two-part song. Both parts are very high-energy. The first part focuses more on JID's past and his opinions on the record industry and other people he knows "playing their soul" in order to make it big. Both parts also bring up African-Americans' history of being oppressed by the dominant culture of the USA, and relates it to events he has observed in his life.

The fourth track, Crack Sandwich, describes in detail the hardships he has faced throughout his life, starting the song with the line "You can tell a n***a like me ain't never had sh*t". The last verse of the song is a straight freestyle on a club fight that happened while they were celebrating the graduation of JID's brother Izzy, whom JID describes as a talented football player and an academic. The unsettling beat masterfully adds to the sinister feel of the song.

JID continues to show the hardships he dealt with while growing up for the next three songs, including Kody Blu 31, the 7th track of the album. Kody Blu 31 is one of the most unique songs in the album, since JID sings his lyrics to a slow, spiritual beat and a backing choir. The chorus says that one must "keep on swangin' on" through hard times; that is, they must keep their head high despite all troubles. It provides a hopeful closing to the theme of troubles as a young adult.

There are plenty of other unique songs on the album, which discuss other themes relevant to JID's life such as family and other relationships. The album ends with a 7 minute long outro titled 2007, which is effectively a summary of his life. It describes 4 key moments in his life, each based around the release of an album relevant to him; the 4 moments are the release of J. Cole's The Come Up in 2007, his The Warm Up in 2009, his Cole World: The Sideline Story as well as Kendrick Lamar's Section.80 in 2011, and the release of JID's own debut album The Never Story in 2017. It includes spoken excerpts from his dad and J. Cole, whom JID is signed to and also clearly inspired by.

Overall, every song in the album has well-spun lyrics which tell the story of JID's life and the hardships of African-Americans in a gripping manner. He raps each verse of each song with a new flow, even sometimes switching flow within a verse. His beats tell the story of each song just as well as the lyrics themselves, and any other elements he includes within each of these masterfully narrate the oppression of African-Americans in the past and present while linking it to his own struggles.