On the deep cut “Kody Blu 31” from his newest album The Forever Story, J.I.D reflects on using sounds from his grandmother’s burial as inspiration.
Ebro Darden from Apple Music recently traveled to a remote part of Georgia to visit J.I.D at the home he bought to pass down to future generations of his family.
“The way it starts is actually at my grandma’s funeral,” J.I.D said of “Kody Blu 31”. “I have the actual footage. I’m sitting there crying, holding the phone, recording this, because I know it’s a big moment.
“A couple years before that, we lost my other grandma on my mother’s side. This is my dad’s mother we lost. Recording this, my dad is singing his heart out on this recording.”
He continued: “At the beginning of the song, if you listen to it, the first 15, 20 seconds, you could hear my whole family singing. You could hear my momma say, ‘Thank you, Lord.’
“It’s super powerful, and it’s just literally about keep pushing through. The song is saying, ‘Swing on, swing on.’ It’s a choir-type feel. My family is all over the album.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=515&v=RHYVoK52LVk&feature=emb_title
J.I.D hails from a family that values music much; vocalist Johnta Austin of So So Def is his cousin.
Football was actually his first love, and while he finally discovered that he was talented at it, his desire was to play cornerback in the NFL.
“I ain’t always want to be a rapper or artist or nothing like this,” he admitted. “This wasn’t my dream. It was my first love, but you don’t always marry your first love.
“This was just, I’m really fire at this, I’m really gifted at this. It kind of came to me in a time of craziness, turmoil, bad shit was going on and the music kind of saved me from that. Yeah. I always wanted to be a football player.”
According to HITS Daily Double, The Forever Story is expected to sell roughly 30,000 total album-equivalent units in its first week and make the Billboard 200’s Top 10 list.
Regarding the music front, J.I.D is planning for his upcoming DiCaprio 3 release to be a Gangsta Grillz project created in collaboration with mixtape king DJ Drama.
