Guest-verse quality tells you a lot about a rapper's level of respect among their peers. If a rapper puts out an album full of sloppy autopilot guest-verses, then chances are the rest of the rap world doesn't consider this person to be much of a factor. If a rap record comes with guest appearances where people really go all-out, then you can tell that people hold that artist in high regard. Justifiably, people hold Atlanta rapper JID in high regard. It's something that jumps out on one listen to his new album God Does Like Ugly.
JID has been building for a long time, and he released his very impressive album The Forever Story three years ago. A few months ago, JID started the rollout to the follow-up, releasing the single "WRK" and the pre-album mixtape GDLU Preluxe. That guy got Eminem to show up on a song that's on the mixtape but not the album, which is saying something. God Does Like Ugly, which comes out today, is one of those albums where the features don't appear on the tracklist, so that they'll show up as surprises when you listen to the album. That means I just spoiled a bunch of them in the headline for this blog post. Sorry, but that's the game.
The first voice that you hear on God Does Like Ugly belongs to Westside Gunn, not JID, which is both cool and jarring. The rest of the album includes a bunch more guests, and I'm going to spoil them all here: Vince Staples, Ciara, Don Toliver, EARTHGANG, 6LACK, Ty Dolla $ign, Baby Kia, Jessie Reyez, Mereba, and the resurgent Clipse, who bring serious gravitas to "Community." Producers include Thundercat, Lex Luger, Jay Versace, Childish Major, and Boi-1da. JID again proves that he's worthy of all these people's best collaborative efforts, doing his skittering introspective fast-rap thing and cutting it with moments of soft-spoken melody. The album unfolds with a graceful, panoramic sense of confidence. Also, I really like the "What's Your Fantasy?" interpolation on "On McAfee."
The Kendrick Lamar comparisons no longer apply to JID; he's his own guy now. If you're into big-budget, big-statement rap records, you should hear this one. Stream it below.
God Does Like Ugly is out now on Dreamville/Interscope.
