📍 Stubb’s — Nov. 24, 2025
Written by Krysta Ayers / Photos by Levi Thompson
It’s been three years since JID brought a band with him to appear on NPR’s Tiny Desk and stunned a new internet audience into fandom. Even then, stepping out of the cold (yet supportive) shadow of the Dreamville umbrella and J. Cole’s wings, his talent, technicality, and versatility couldn’t be questioned. And on Monday, the Atlanta rapper brought a sharper tongue and a catalog of hype beats to Austin for his God Does Like World Tours.
The rapper, who celebrated his 35th birthday on Halloween, dished out so much of his work for this setlist—including tracks from past projects like 2022’s The Forever Story, 2018’s DiCaprio 2, and 2017’s The Never Story. His newest album, God Does Like Ugly, was the anvil and centerpiece for the show, the project being promoted on the tour, and his performance of this work only added to the now-indisputable fact that JID is a force in the MC circle.
From the opening “YouUgly,” JID is proclaiming his well-deserved spot as a rapper to know. He spits, “It’s been a long time coming, I swear / but let’s be clear / [homies] know I been killin’ this shit for years,” and the audience responds with loud cheers, claps, and energy. He goes into “Bodies,” a song he collaborated on with Offset, which elicits the first moment of crowd surfing for the fans near the stage.
Not unlike a JID album, his live performance encapsulates a personal story contextualized by being a Black man in America from the South. Images of Martin Luther King Jr., Black students outside schools (presumably images from the Brown v Board of Education era, which he’s rapped about), and segregation during Jim Crow were splattered on the giant screen behind him as he rapped tracks like “VCRs” and “Community.” On the latter he raps, “My ghetto is not your culture / [homies] really die here / So hard to say goodbye / It’s the only lullaby here,” to home in on the harsh realities of growing up in Atlanta and the ways that non-Black people play into this rap “culture” as if it was a game, like playing house.
It should be noted that even though it was a Monday, Stubb’s was packed, and groups were crowded to the very back, holding onto merch, and sipping expensive 24-ounce cans of beer. It should also be noted that JID rapped every single word, with impeccable breath work, with no backing track to do all the work. Through “151 Rum,” the bass-heavy, 80s-esque “Sk8,” and the popular hit “Never,” JID was there for every bar—Kendrick-levels of technical work and craft. He played “Wholeheartedly” off the new album as well, a song that sounds like it could belong to Frank Ocean, showing off his ability to dive into R&B and be versatile in his field.
Shockingly, there was no encore. But JID gave the crowd everything, with no time to spare to make an encore possible. (The venue’s weekday curfew is 10:30pm.) He thanked the crowd profusely throughout his set, bookending each song with a “give it up for yourselves” quip. He was energetic, thankful, humble, and striking. By next year, Stubb’s stage will be too small for him, and y’all will be kicking yourselves for not being at this show.