The Daily Spin II

JID | DiCaprio 2

Welcome back to the Daily Spin. For the uninitiated, this is the series in which I review an album every day of 2025.

As was the case two years ago, my favorite song from each album can be found at the playlist linked here.

Album: DiCaprio 2 (2018)

Artist: JID

Link:

Two years ago, I spoke to JID’s fantastic lyricism in my review of his first full-length effort, The Forever Story. Coming back to him once more, it’s nice to see that some things don’t change at all. JID is just as lightning-quick and just as cutting with every barb, playing to strengths it’s clear he knows well by this point in time.

No clearer is this than on Off Da Zoinkys - silly as the name is, it’s a track laced with witticism that most people would die to be able to roll with, all laid over a truly gorgeous piano loop, arpeggiating up and down like stairways through the cosmos. Even JID’s collaborators show up and show out - label owner J. Cole makes a standard appearance, A$AP Ferg comes through and brings the house down on ‘Westbrook’ - the house is full, and it is rocking.

It’s not perfect. Skrawberries misses the mark rather badly, as a heavy-handed critique gets worse with some of the few couplets that don’t gel, and occasionally the beats feel a little misused - wasted potential. In the aggregate, though, this is a shining push from a deeply talented rapper, one of the best to have entered the scene in the past decade or so. We’re lucky to see his ascent.

Rating: 7/10

Best Tracks: Off Da Zoinkys

Worst Tracks: Skrawberries