Atlanta, GA · hip-hop

JID

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Dreamville's technician — one of rap's most gymnastic voices, devastating live, syllables stacked like a man showing off because he can.

JID was born Destin Choice Route in Atlanta, the youngest of seven children, and picked up his stage name from a grandmother's nickname for his jittery behavior. He played football through a scholarship at Hampton University before a hip injury and skipped practices ended that path, after which he moved in with the duo who became EarthGang.

That connection led to Spillage Village, the collective JID formed with EarthGang in 2010, and later to Zoink Gang, a group with Smino, Buddy and Guapdad 4000. He built a following through self-released mixtapes including Route of Evil, Para Tu and DiCaprio before signing to J. Cole's Dreamville in 2017.

His appeal rests largely on technique: a high, elastic voice, rapid-fire delivery and dense internal rhyme schemes, set against production that ranges from Southern trap to looser, soul-inflected beats. He has appeared on Dreamville's collaborative compilations and recorded with a broad spread of artists across rap and beyond.

His debut album The Never Story (2017) and its follow-up DiCaprio 2 (2018) built his critical reputation, and 2021's 'Enemy' with Imagine Dragons, written for the Netflix series Arcane, became his highest-charting song at number five on the Hot 100. The Forever Story (2022) and God Does Like Ugly (2025) both landed in the Billboard 200's top fifteen, with the latter earning a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Album.

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hip-hop