JID’s The Forever Story: The Meaning Behind his Third Album
Written by SOURCE on August 23, 2022
These cathartic reflections become even more pronounced on the latter half of The Forever Story, which also finds JID flexing a more refined vocal pocket he says he’s been working on for a while now.
“I had to get a singing coach,” JID reveals when we talk about the melodies he’s perfected on another standout song. “Really being able to sing is fire, a lot of niggas can’t do that, so I’m trying to rap at the highest level and sing at the highest level.” JID’s enhanced singing ability on The Forever Story makes it’s personal subject matter hit even closer to home. The perils of fame and success are often measured by how it affects friends and associates, but rarely how it complicates family situations. JID raps about the strong bond he has with his brothers on one song, but juxtaposes that with the following track, which discusses the faulty relationship he has yet to successfully mend with one of his sisters. “My family situation is a weird thing and even the stuff I’m talking about on here is kind of touchy, so not a lot of them have heard it,” JID says. “Maybe like two, but it’s for them to listen to. I’m not going to make them.”
All of the themes and introspective storytelling in The Forever Story is summarized in the narratively-driven track “2007,” which was originally meant to be the outro for the album before he decided to share it with his fans just a week before its release. JID uses the release dates of different influential albums in his life—including J. Cole’s The Come Up, The Warm Up, and Cole World: The Sideline Story, Kendrick Lamar’s Section .80, and his own The Never Story—as checkpoints that chart his path from football phenom to rap star. Family is deeper than blood, and not only does JID get Dreamville’s head honcho J. Cole to deliver an inspirational story about how they met on the song plus a rare 8 bars from the label’s co-founder Ibrahim Hamad, but his father is also featured on the track.
“You can understand where I got it from,” he says when talking about getting his dad’s narration. “He’s a creative nigga, he be writing poetry and shit. We’re really like exactly the same, so that’s probably why we bump heads,” JID explains with a smirk. “It was nothing to explain to him to do that, he knew exactly what to do. He did that in a couple of takes. He’s a natural with anything, honestly.” The insertion of his pops isn’t the only seamless inclusion on The Forever Story, either; the album comes laced with impressive features that highlight how well respected JID is in the rap world.
