Dreamville music label

The Never Story

J.I.D

The Never Story Album marked the beginning of J.I.D's music career

This is shown through the background information given by Genius. It states that,"The Never Story is J.I.D's debut studio album arriving less than three weeks after his signing to J.Cole's Dreamville Records. The 12-track album boasts features from 6LACK,EARTHGANG and Mereba. J.Cole himself produced two tracks on the project: D/vision and LAUDER. The album was fueled with success of the underground hit NEVER which was first released on February 10, 2016.
From the background information above,there are four key points which shows how the album marked the beginning of J.I.D's music career. Firstly it seems to act as a declaration to J.I.D being signed to J.Cole's Dreamville Records. Secondly, 6LACK,EARTHGANG,Mereba and JID are members of Spillage Village hence explaining why they collaborated with J.I.D in the first place. According to Wikipedia ,"Spillage Village is an American musical collective from Atlanta,Georgia. The group is composed of rappers,singers and producers,and was founded by the members of Earthgang. Spillage Village began its collaboration in the early 2010s at Hampton University in Virginia". Thirdly, the fact that J.Cole produced two tracks on the project D/vision and LAUDER clearly shows that J.Cole had a lot of faith in J.I.D being the successful rapper he is. Lastly the song NEVER was released on 2016 which became a hit after it featured on the album The Never Story which was released on 2017. This probably aided J.I.D to gain recognition hence why I believe the album marked the beginning of J.I.D's music career.

J.I.D telling his truth on The Never Story is another reason why it marked the beginning of his career. According to hiphopdx.com: Review:Dreamville Rookie J.I.D. Tells His Truth On The Never Story by Scott Glaysher,it states that,"it only takes one listen of J.I.D's The Never Story to realize why J.Cole and the good people at Dreamville decided to add him to their illustrious roster. The East Atlanta spitter's lyric-driven rap style is basically contemporary counterculture in the South;something that J.Cole himself dealt with during his slow-burning come up. In most cases these days,making out of the Atlanta scene might be easier than in most places Hip Hop hotbeds but to do so without touching a trap beat or messing with multiple layers of Auto-Tune is always impressive-or at least impressive enough to earn a Dreamville contract".
When Scott Glaysher said,"..without touching a trap beat...",he seems to be making reference to the new rap music which is trap. The fact that J.I.D is not using trap beat in his music us one of the reasons why he earned a Dreamville contract. This probably shows that Dreamville is all about making sure that the old rap music lives on.