JID ‘God Does Like Ugly’ Review: An Ostentatious Audition Reel

JID’s God Does Like Ugly performs just like the hip-hop equal of an overachiever’s time period paper, strategically filled with supply references for optimum GPA-boosting affect. The Atlanta rapper dazzlingly hurls round syllables like an auctioneer, set to jarring manufacturing shifts that swing from church-organ gospel to West Coast bounce to post-Dilla jazz-noodling, with a visitor listing of fellow hyper-articulators to show JID can preserve tempo with nearly anybody.

Very like J. Cole, his label boss, JID is deeply involved together with his legacy to an eye-rolling diploma, and it’s nearly as if he’s scared of letting one densely packed bar slip by, so he retains making an attempt to prime himself. Previously, JID may let a beat journey and a thought breathe; right here, like on 2022’s The Ceaselessly Story, it’s all fireworks, any intimacy buried below the confetti of his personal ambition.

Proper from the leap, God Does Like Ugly comes out swinging with aggressive shout-outs to haters, potshots at anybody checking JID’s first-week gross sales, and beat and move switches stacked like an endurance take a look at. Much less a welcome mat than a pissing contest, “YouUgly” hammers dwelling the album’s thesis: JID guidelines, you all drool.

The rapper then ricochets between entice and increase bap on cuts like “WRK” and “Neighborhood,” not a lot settling right into a groove as frantically making an attempt to show he can play in any sandbox. With jazz-sample head-nodders preventing for elbow room with sub-rattling Atlanta trunk-bangers, the album’s manufacturing is flexible however whiplash-enducing. The entire thing is stressed, overstuffed, and determined to impress.

Lyrically, JID is at his most self-conscious right here, packing the album’s 15 tracks with wordplay and rapid-fire flows which might be typically pushed to the sting of exhaustion. He waxes philosophical on the three-part “On Blue,” but it surely comes off as heavy-handed and overwrought. That striving for profundity runs by means of the entire album, with dense, layered verses seemingly designed to satisfy essential expectations slightly than emotional ones. JID’s technical talent is rarely something in need of spectacular, but the center of God Does Like Ugly is buried below conceptual grandstanding.

God Does Like Ugly tries too arduous to be all issues without delay—a trap-banging opus, a religious journey, a mic-shredding clinic—that it finally ends up being none of them for very lengthy. The end result performs much less like the following step for a gifted artist and extra like an costly audition reel. It’s all hubris and no humility.