J.I.D Interview – Maintaining Integrity, Being a Leader, Lyricism

J.I.D
Sharper rhymes. Harder lines.
Interview: Vanessa Satten
Editor’s Note: This story appears in the Fall 2025 issue of XXL Magazine, on newsstands now and available for sale on the XXL website.

“I want a BET nomination,” J.I.D says when asked about his bucket list. It’s not far-fetched. He already has three Grammy nods and with the way he’s been dropping music, a BET trophy seems feasible. Born Destin Choice Route, the Atlanta native is cemented as one of hip-hop’s premier lyricists, sharpening his pen with every project.

Across mixtapes, collabs, EPs and four acclaimed albums—The Never Story (2017), DiCaprio 2 (2018), The Forever Story (2022) and this year’s God Does Like Ugly—J.I.D has carved out a clear lane of his own. For him, words aren’t just rhymes; they’re the foundation of his artistry, a puzzle he takes joy in piecing together with precision and intent.

Challenges don’t scare him. The youngest of seven kids, J.I.D, 34, grew up playing serious football in high school and at Hampton University. In 2012, he walked away from the game and from college to pursue a music career. He grinded over the next five years before signing to J. Cole’s Dreamville Records, under Interscope Records, in 2017.

Since then, J.I.D has built his career on his own terms. For the thoughtful rhyme slinger, rapping isn’t just about flexing skills; it’s about crafting something meaningful that connects, challenges and lasts. On a beautiful September afternoon at Lower Manhattan’s Sunday Afternoon studio, J.I.D discusses his career and collection of rhyme notebooks, being boxed in as a lyricist, his cover brother Joey Bada$$ and the will of the gods.

XXL: You were an XXL Freshman in 2018. Now here you are on the cover. How does that feel for you?

J.I.D: To be on the cover, that’s hard. I feel like the last cover I had was Dreamville [Editor’s Note: J.I.D was part of the Dreamville Records group XXL cover in Spring 2019] or something like that. So to be on it with less Dreamville people, just one, yeah, I’m taking that.

Is this your time right now? You’ve had a great response to your most recent album God Does Like Ugly. Your singles are working. “Surround Sound” was a big look and your collaborations are getting impressive. Is this the start of what you’ve been waiting for?

Everything been intentional with my career. So, if this seemed like the time to everybody else, I feel like it’s just the next step I need to be taking, as far as getting to whatever the next level is for me. Some would say it’s the time with me. I’m just saying this is already like, orchestrated. It’s the will of the gods.

The will of the gods. How much control do you give to the will of the gods?

You gotta be prepared for opportunities. I’ve been just preparing for whatever may come, so I could just execute and know what to do when whatever presents itself. It’s really just about execution.

I put my best foot forward, you know what I’m saying? I feel like that’s when you leave it up to the will of the gods. After you put your best foot forward, you put yourself out there and let the fans or let the people who listen to it do whatever they want with it
because it’s out your hands.

You’ve now been in the game for eight years. You’ve had success. You’ve toured and seen the world. Is everything you’ve experienced within hip-hop so far what you thought it would be? Once the door was opened? Once the Eminem relationship existed?

It’s kind of a double-edged sword, yes and no. Because I came into the game a little bit older like when I got signed, I already had went through college and all that type of stuff. So at this point, it wasn’t nothing I was not prepared for, you know what I’m saying? Because I’m not like really a deer in headlights. I’m a fan of the art and I’m a fan of hip-hop and everything that we do, but I know that it’s like a dark undertone to it sometimes. I don’t lean into it for one second, even like some of the negativity, even the back and forth. I don’t want to really lean into it.

Do you think you’d be bigger if you did? Or do you think that just doesn’t matter?

That don’t matter. I wanna keep my integrity about who I am. I don’t want to do things that I don’t care about. I’m not faking it. I’m not trying to go viral. I don’t want to go viral. I think that, viral, usually before it meant like you’re sick. Viral is a sickness to me. Not in a bad way. It can work in both ways, but I don’t wanna be your viral sensation. I would rather work for it. If my payoff comes 10 years from now and I’m almost 50, that’s fine with me. It’s about really putting my feet into the mud.

So, it’s really not the fame.

You heard “Never.” Remember my first song? “I ain’t [even] in this sh*t for the fame, bruh, it’s the pain, bruh.” I still say that to this day. I’m only telling these painful stories or these great stories about motivation. Then I feel like the stuff that I make [is] just because I was an athlete. You can work out to it, like you can better your life to some of my music. I kinda love when people say that.

Do you think there’s a lack of depth in hip-hop right now or in what’s connecting?

I think it’s so much information and so much stuff out there. You can find whatever you’re looking for. It’s there. The depth that people say is not there, it’s just, they not looking. It’s like how to get your information is just like whoever’s first. So, whoever everybody likes first and say, OK, this is that depth artist to me, the herd is gonna follow.

What I’m looking for in hip-hop, I can find it. It’s never lacking in any realm or regard because I could find the depth if I need it. I could find that moment. I can find all of it. You just have to look. People nowadays, I’m not sure, but I just know, I don’t think everyone is caring to search and find because it’s just so much stuff, and looking for those moments…

Look for those moments and artists. Do you think those artists are coming out and what you’re talking about still exists?

Yeah, it still exists…

At that same level or is everyone just trying to have a TikTok hit now?

It could be both. Both things could be true. I also believe in some artists, and I hope that I can be like the leader of change for them. I’m one of the artists who like, literally, I’m not the only one, but I care about this. I care about our genre. I care about what happens to hip-hop in the next 100 years.

I care about the stories that’s gonna be told about it, everything that I’ve heard growing up, I still believe those stories. The Tupacs and the Bigs and all of that stuff. I still care about those. I wanna make sure those are like well-handled going into the future.

You recently collaborated with Eminem on his record “Fuel.” So, you get a call from someone like Em, a DM, a message from someone on his team. What’s that moment like for you? Because that’s nostalgia, right? That’s him saying he sees you, right?

That’s that nostalgia… That’s a blessing. It kind of lets me know that I’ve been going in the right direction because my whole career has been full circle moments like that. Everyone that I like really grew up to or just loved and admired and looked to for something of depth or whatever I was looking for, most of those artists have circled back around and tapped in, you know what I’m saying? There’s a few I got the name that just, it kind of blows my mind that I have certain relationships I’m able to text some of these people on my phone, literally.

Who blows your mind?

I mean, Em.

Do you get tired of being defined and identified as a lyricist?

I wanna have a little fun?

Yeah. Is it a torch you feel like you have to carry now?

For sure. I just be aiming for the highest level of whatever I can do. And if it comes with more fame, if it comes with all that, like I’m down to take it. That’s the weight, the load I need to carry. But, nah, people can call me lyricist. I’m not upset with it. I think it’s a beautiful thing.

Not to be upset with it, but to be always labeled?

It’s a box.

It’s a title that’s revered and put on a certain level, but it’s still a box. Does that limit you at all?

Being from Atlanta, people kind of turn their nose up at the South and having the lyricists and stuff like that. Yeah, and they make the exceptions, like with André 3000. I feel like I’ve been regarded in that exception, but at the same time, it’s just a different dialect. It’s a different way we speak about things, and I think it’s lyricists that people just wouldn’t even consider that because of how it comes out.

Earlier today, in another interview, you mentioned that one of the things you do when you wake up in the morning is write something. Are you always writing lyrics, or are you writing because it helps you get your thoughts out for the day? Are you always getting something out?

I’m always getting some out, whether it’s writing a poem, a diary entry, or a manifestation or something. I keep a book, a pen or many notes on my phone. I keep literally books.

Do you just think about one line that you like and want to remember, and write it there? A lyric you want to use later.

It could be a punchline. I remember walking around during the pandemic and doing the “Surround Sound” like, just the flow of it, you know what I’m saying? I heard the beat [humming melody of “Surround Sound” hook] and I just remember doing that over and over. I get voice notes of it, and so it comes with medium, but usually it’s something like a funny punchline or something clever that I’ll jot down, or just a melody that haunts me, you know what I’m saying? And I’ll chase it down until I put the words down. I’m thinking of stuff right now.

So, your world is words. It’s how you think. It’s how you get things out.

For sure. [A notebook is] my pièce de résistance. That’s the one thing I walk around with every day.

Then you stack them up and save them as you finish them?

When I have an album and it’s a book that I wrote it in, I move it to the side, you know what I’m saying, like The Never Story, the whole album that I wrote in this one notebook, I just never write in it again. But all of the pages were filled, you know what I’m saying, with stuff that didn’t make the album.

We have you and Joey Bada$$ here today sharing the cover. You guys are good friends. You are just a few years apart in age and are dads. What do you think of Joey’s rap style? What do you notice about him? How are you guys similar; how do you differ musically?

First off, bruh on his Black plight sh*t, just like me, you know what I’m saying? That’s what anybody that be trying to push our Black culture forward and add to the little pebbles on the beach of sand that make up the Black diaspora. Like I’m all for it.

And then bruh from New York, bro. New York ni**as get a pass off like, not from me, but I’m just saying in hip-hop, if you have that accent, some ni**as [will be] just like, “Oh, ah, ah.” So, I’m not saying that he doesn’t do everything he needs to do, but it’s the ethos behind it. It’s the sound of it. Hip-hop started out here. This is like a mecca from where it was created.

So yeah, bro words and everything he’s doing since he was younger, it’s always been on point. It’s always been intention behind it. [He’s] a good dude, good artist.

As you get further into your career, do you ever feel a responsibility or that there is something you have to live up to?

Yeah. At this point in my career, the older I get, being a father, I’m leaning into more like the Nina Simone side of things. But it just depends on what you’re looking for. I’d rather beef with the system than another one of my brothers or anybody like that, you know what I’m saying? I’d rather not add more into the culture of hate and people dying and stuff like that.

Listen to J.I.D’s God Does Like Ugly Album

See Photos From Joey Bada$$ and J.I.D’s XXL Magazine Fall 2025 Cover Shoot

Watch Joey Bada$$ and J.I.D’s Interview With XXL

→ Continue reading at XXL Mag