J.I.D Was Courted By Quality Control Before He Signed To Dreamville

J.I.D might be one of the most promising young artists on J. Cole’s Dreamville label, but a few years back, his career almost took a very different turn. In a new interview with Rolling Stone, the Atlanta MC revealed that he was in talks with Quality Control, the home to rappers like Migos, Lil Yachty, Lil Baby, and City Girls, when J. Cole first reached out to him.

“[Quality Control’s Kevin ‘Coach K’ Lee] heard a record I did with I feel like Maco, whenever OG Maco popped off,“ he said, seemingly in reference to “Who Came To Party” from 2015. "He just liked the way my voice cut through. He was like, ‘Oh, you’re going to be a star.‘”

According to J.I.D, a chance encounter in East Atlanta brought him very close to inking a deal before Cole reached out. “One day I just saw [Coach K] out on like Edgewood, where everybody used to be in the city,“ he said. "He was like, ‘I fuck with you. Let’s go to lunch.’ So we went to lunch. Met up with him, chopped it up one time. We met another time, sat down and ate. We was closer to really about to sign and shit and Cole and them was like ‘Hold off, we want to fuck with you.‘”

The majority of Quality Control’s biggest acts are from Atlanta, which fits with J.I.D’s background. However, most of the music released by the label hews closer to trap music than the conscious rap style of J.I.D and Dreamville. Earlier this month, he joked about moving to QC or TDE because Dreamville fans don’t shake their asses enough:

He’s also challenged his own label to step their game up to better compete with TDE.

Read his full interview here and catch up on all the lyrics to J.I.D’s DiCaprio 2 on Genius now.