REVIEW | JID LIVE AT THE O2 ACADEMY BIRMINGHAM

As I walked out of the now musky halls of the O2 Academy in Birm­ing­ham, as the cool night breeze chilled the sur­face of my wet skin, not know­ing if all of the sweat was from me or not, I knew I just exper­i­enced some­thing spe­cial: a gen­er­a­tion­al tal­ent.

JID is not new to the hip hop scene, but he is finally gain­ing recog­ni­tion in the main­stream due to his most recent album, The Forever Story, where he show­cases his lyr­ic­al, storytelling, and even singing prowess. He teamed up with his Dream­ville coun­ter­part, Earthgang, in his UK tour, embody­ing south­ern hip hop to its core.

The open­ing acts of Atlanta rap­per SwaVay, pro­claim­ing that this was his first time leav­ing the US, and the afore­men­tioned Earthgang, con­trolled the crowd and per­fectly hyped up the ven­ue in pre­par­a­tion for JID. To my sur­prise, JID pulled a left turn by using a live drum­mer and key­board­ist in his per­form­ance which made the songs feel like a once in a life­time exper­i­ence.

From the almost rock-inspired rendi­tion of “Ray­dar,” to the soul­ful per­form­ance of “Off Da Zoinkys,” JID shows off his range that his fans have come to expect from a rap­per as tech­nic­ally pro­fi­cient as him­self.

Banger after banger to start the ven­ue such as “Dance Now,” “151 Rum,” “Nev­er,” and “Off Deez,” were then off­set by a string of more laid back, chill cuts like “Brud­danem,” “Sis­tanem,” and “Wor­kin Out,” which gave a much needed breath of fresh of fresh air before jump­ing right back into the fray.

A couple of standout moments include the per­form­ance of “Kody Blu 31,” where JID shows off his under­rated singing abil­ity, while also let­ting the crowd sing the emo­tion­al anthem of “swang on swang on” which exclaims to keep going after all of our “stresses and woes” of our lives. The oth­er standout was an unex­pec­ted trip down memory lane, start­ing with Aretha Frank­lin’s “One Step Ahead,” which is known for being a legendary hip hop sample, not only for JID, but for Yasi­in Bey, formerly Mos Def. That then transitioned into the pre­vi­ously men­tioned Yasi­in Bey song, “Ms. Fat Booty,” in which they played some of his first verse before trans­ition­ing again into JIDs “Sur­round Sound.”

Wrap­ping up the show on, of course, “Stick,” before JID and Earthgang decided they should do 3 more songs that the audi­ence reques­ted, then per­form­ing “Can­’t Punt Me,” “Wells Fargo,” and “Costa Rica,” all of which include Earthgang, which made for a fit­ting sen­doff for the show.

All in all, an incred­ible per­form­ance from every­one involved. As Rakim once said “to me, MC means ‘move the crowd’,” which is exactly what they did. JID will go down as one of the best to touch a mic. His flows and lyr­i­cism are the best in the game right now, and I can­’t wait to see what he comes out with next.

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Kirin Siton

Kir­in Siton has always been a fan of hip hop grow­ing up with a dad from Brook­lyn, New York. Liv­ing in mul­tiple coun­tries through­out his life, he loves to con­stantly find new artists and genres that he not have thought we would have been inter­ested in.

Latest posts by Kirin Siton (see all)

• REVIEW | JID LIVE AT THE O2 ACADEMY BIRM­ING­HAM — July 25, 2023
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