J.I.D. & EARTHGANG

Being keenly aware of his situation has always paid dividends for J.I.D. The East Side
Atlanta native went to Hampton University in Virginia on a full football scholarship. But
once he started playing at the prestigious HBCU, J.I.D. realized he may too small to
make his NFL dreams happen. He was disappointed, but saw an opportunity.
With Atlanta’s robust music scene as a backdrop, J.I.D. had already dabbled in making
music and had gotten an overwhelmingly positive response to his first recording over
Bun B’s “Pushin” back in high school. So he decided to make a mixtape. “It was crazy,”
recalls J.I.D., who got his moniker from his grandma, who used to call him ‘Jittery.’ “We
had hella dope songs on there and we got buzz around the campus. Kinda like what
happened in high school happened again. That’s when I realized I had an idea of how to
do this.”
As his campus rep grew, J.I.D. met and connected with fellow ATL transplants
EarthGang at school, and started doing shows with them. When he moved back home,
J.I.D. helped form the Spillage Village collective with EarthGang (who had also
relocated back to Atlanta), producer Hollywood JB, Jordan Bryant and DJ DarkKnight.
His Para Tu mixtape, which boasts the revered cut “Proverbs,” arrived in 2013.
Steady on the grind, J.I.D. kept recording, networking and performing. His February
2015 mixtape, DiCaprio, was inspired by the acclaim J.I.D. felt the actor was lacking.
“Leo wasn’t getting any type of recognition, and I felt like I wasn’t getting acknowledged
in my field either,” J.I.D. explains of the project, which showcased his burgeoning
lyricism and storytelling skills. “I used different phrases and quotes from his movies in
the mixtape, stuff that could get my thoughts out about being an underdog. That’s how I
always felt being the youngest, but I knew one day that would change.”
The 25-year-old’s big break came organically. While on tour with EarthGang, who was
opening for Dreamville artist Ab-Soul, J.I.D. met and developed a relationship – a
brotherhood, really – with J. Cole, one that eventually led to J.I.D. signing to the North
Carolina rapper’s imprint.
“Cole is somebody who’s been doing what I’m trying to do and he’s a big part of helping
me out right now,” J.I.D. says. “I already had my music ready, but he gives opinions and
critiques and helps me fine tune it because he knows where I want to go and he
understands what I want to do in the music. He’ll come back and ask me, ‘What is the
message you’re trying to tell?’ He’s really big on making sure I portray my story right.”
The next set of stories J.I.D. will be telling are on his forthcoming Never: Chapter 1 EP.
“It’s all about where I’ve been and how I’m leaving that area of my life and trying to
make everything better,” he says. “Growing up in a big family and being the last, just
sucked! This EP encapsulates how it felt.”
The frenetic lead single “Never” explores what it feels like when you’ve been deprived of
everything you want. “I feel like a lot of people will like ‘Never’ because the messaging
is not real flashy,” offers J.I.D. “I’m upset that I don’t have these things but at the end of
the song there’s a brighter transition that let’s you know there’s hope for the future. The
transition in that song is real special.”
Elsewhere, “Hereditary” showcases producer HalfTyme Slim’s musical chops and
J.I.D.’s storytelling skills. “This song is about stuff I’ve been through with women in
my past, being hurt and the lessons that you learn,” J.I.D. says. “It’s a beautiful song, I
think. I hope people put respeck on it like it deserves.”
J. Cole produced the sublime “Night Vision,” which features J.I.D. and EarthGang
examining issues pertaining to the Black community. “General,” by comparison, provides
some biographical information on J.I.D.
“I want people to understand the struggles I’ve been through to get where I am today,”
J.I.D. reveals. “Not so much the comfortability but the peace of mind. I want to show
people what you can accomplish when you step outside of your comfort zone and try to
better yourself. Mine, is a common man’s story. This is a hopeful project.”


The very first day Johnny Venus and Doctur Dot of EarthGang met, their school caught
on fire. On a field trip, they’d discovered they had similar tastes in music and that neither
was scared to say exactly what he was thinking. As their bus turned toward campus, they
saw smoke billowing and felt the hand of serendipity at work. Everything around them
was burning down, leaving something new, a phoenix, in its wake—their partnership.
“We just had our own vibe,” says Doctur Dot. “We weren’t doing music just to get rich
and drink a bunch of lean. Nah. We just wanna make music best we can.”
A handful of years later, that’s precisely what they’ve become known for. Marrying lean,
sharp-eyed lyricism with Southern-fried soul to produce keep-em-guessing projects like
their most recent, 2015’s Strays With Rabies or the much-lauded 2013 Shallow Graves
for Toys, they embody the best of the new generation of music—and plenty of critics and
fans alike have taken note. Noisey lavished praise on the duo, calling their work a
“renewal for Atlanta, a departure from the city's familiar club sounds … Every song
arrived fully formed, hitting hard and landing jokes while also delving deep into political
issues, especially topics of race.” Working with fellow bout-to-blow artists like J.I.D. and
established producers like J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League, they’ve continued to hit curve balls
musically, surprising not only their fan base, but also themselves.
“I’m always trying to push the limits of things,” says Johnny Venus.
“We tend to work with producers that wanna break some rules. They pull out their secret
stuff – the reason they do that is they know we aren’t constricted to one type of sound,
one type of rhythm or attitude. We contain multitudes,” continues Dot.
It wasn’t always that way. As they were coming up in Atlanta, the guys found it difficult
not only to find producers that wanted to work with them, but also mentors, surprising in
a city with such a rich rap history. “In the beginning, we didn’t have nobody that wanted
to work with us, so we worked by ourselves and made the most of it,” says Dot. “We
didn’t have anybody else who thought we should be doing it.”
That all changed with 2011’s Mad Men project. With their nimble wordplay and ability to
color outside the line, comparisons to another local group—Outkast—cropped up, and
EarthGang quickly became a name to know. They were branded a clever indie hip-hop
act, and for a big part of their career, they were, as Dot puts it, “surfing the indie ocean
and doing real good.” But as the years have passed, that label has become constricting.
Now, they find themselves stretching beyond the “indie hip-hop” brand, ready to reach a
wider audience with sharp-slick lyrics that cut through the hazy blur of ratchet rap and an
avid interest in never settling or resting on their laurels. “A lot of people in the industry
get caught up in: ‘This is what I do.’ With us, it’s like, ‘This is what I could do? Shit, I’m
gonna try doing that.’ As long as it keeps being fun, we gonna keep doing it,” Venus
says.
Fittingly, there’s no one genre that can hold EarthGang. “I describe the sound how you
describe freedom. There are twelve notes on the keyboard and I love every single one of
them with all my heat. That's my sound,” Venus says.
“We’re making the transition and recognizing our response as artists. I don’t mean we
gotta save every kid in every hood, but when you represent something to somebody, the
best you think you can do is accept responsibility for what you have to do. Freedom,” Dot
echoes. “We gonna take ‘em to another world.”