LOS ANGELES, CA- Every so often, hip hop gives us a collaboration that feels less like a feature and more like a summit meeting. When artists come together not to trade verses, but to carve out a bigger narrative. J.I.D’s “Community” is exactly that. Linking Atlanta’s sharpest lyricist of his generation with Virginia legends Clipse, it’s a cut that doesn’t just sound hard… it means something.
Musically, “Community” hits like a hammer. The beat is ominous and moody, the kind of production that feels carved from concrete. It’s heavy but not cluttered, giving the rappers space to work, each bar hitting with the precision of a sniper shot. J.I.D opens with a verse that’s as personal as it is expansive, threading together lines about poverty, eviction, resilience, and survival in Atlanta’s apartments. I also love the wit in his wordplay. A Bob the Builder flip becomes a threat tied to the reality of eviction notices. But beneath the cleverness is pain, and beneath the pain is clarity.
What makes the track special, though, is the handoff. J.I.D takes us from Atlanta up I-85 to Virginia, where Clipse pick up the story. Pusha T’s verse is classic Push: icy, confessional, and brutally direct. “I brought white to my hood, shit, I gentrified.” He turns his own history into commentary, reframing his corner boy past as both indictment and survival strategy. It’s The Wire in four bars, but with the kind of word economy that makes Pusha one of the sharpest writers hip hop’s ever seen.
Then Malice steps in, and the song shifts again. His verse carries the weight of reflection, a kind of sorrowful wisdom that only comes from having lived it and survived it. “My ghetto’s not your culture, niggas really die here / So hard to say goodbye, it’s the only lullaby here.” It’s a gritty documentation of life as he knows it. Malice maps out the machinery of poverty and broken families with precision: absent fathers, government-engineered division, Section 8 apartments as both refuge and nightmare. When he says, “Them ‘partments be the perfect backdrop for any nightmare,” there’s a real weight to his words.
That lyricism is matched in the visuals. Directed by Omar Jones, the video leans into the grit: stark images of Section 8 living, block corners, weathered walls, and empty spaces that say as much about community as they do about abandonment. It’s not glossy or aspirational. It’s reflective. It’s a mirror. The visuals connect seamlessly with Malice’s that you can almost feel and smell it.
For me, this track sits at the intersection of everything I love about rap. It’s technically sharp. The lyricism is superb. J.I.D is one of the most dexterous rappers alive, and Clipse’s verses are masterclasses in storytelling. But beyond that, the lyrics mean something. Too often, lyricism gets reduced to wordplay for wordplay’s sake, but here every punchline is tethered to survival, every flex grounded in the consequences of poverty, violence, or ambition. It’s a reminder that when hip hop is at its best, it’s not just entertainment.. it’s testimony. It’s truth set to rhythm.
Coming off Clipse’s Let God Sort Em Out (which has been my favorite hip hop record of the year) and still riding the high of J.I.D’s The Forever Story, which I’d agree with Fantano is one of the 2020s’ defining albums, “Community” feels like a highlight not just of J.I.D’s new album but of hip hop in 2025 as a whole. It’s the kind of track that reminds you what happens when rap is executed with purpose, message, and raw talent.
Hard beat, sharp pens, real stories? What’s not to love?
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