“Community” is a dark, cinematic, and profoundly critical track that unites Atlanta’s lyrical prophet, JID, with the legendary Virginia duo Clipse (Pusha T and Malice). Pulled from JID’s (fictional) 2025 album God Does Like Ugly, the song is a deeply ironic and grim exploration of the word “community.” It paints a picture of life in “them ‘partments” (housing projects) as a traumatic, inescapable vortex of violence, systemic failure, and false choices. The song is a lyrical summit, with each artist delivering a distinct and powerful “point of view” on the same nightmare.
1. The Core Concept: “Them ‘Partments”
The song is a three-act play, and its stage is “them ‘partments.” JID, the song’s primary narrator, introduces this setting in his first verse. This is not a place of neighborly love; it is a trap defined by contradiction. JID paints a picture of a place that is simultaneously a “party every day” and a graveyard.
He immediately establishes the limited, violent options available. The youth in this “community” have two paths: “jump a shot” (try to make it in basketball) or “join a gang.” The urgency is palpable. His mother is a voice of reason, pleading, “we gotta get away from them ‘partments,” because she knows there are “graves in them ‘partments.”
This “community” is a place of perpetual danger, a “vortex” as JID describes in the chorus. It is a place where the normal rules of nature are inverted. The “rain” and “sun” (natural forces) cannot understand the man-made horror of the projects. In this world, understanding comes from trauma. The “pain” and the “gun” are the only true teachers.
The song is a direct refutation of any outside attempt to romanticize or appropriate this “ghetto” lifestyle. As Malice later clarifies, this is not “culture”; it is a place where “niggas really die.”
2. JID’s P.O.V.: The Prophet of the Vortex
JID’s role in “Community” is that of the frenetic, wide-eyed prophet. He sees all the angles, all the forces at play, and all the “portals” that connect them. He opens the song by immediately separating his reality from the entertainment industry. He doesn’t “give a fuck about no industry beef,” contrasting this “rap cap” with the real-world consequence: “Ain’t nobody give a fuck when Tay was dead in the street.”
His “point of view” is that of the “true thing.” He is the one who sees the system for what it is. His most brilliant reference is to Frank Herbert’s Dune, calling himself “Lisan al Gaib.” This title means “The Voice from the Outer World,” a messiah or prophet who comes to lead the people. JID sees himself in this light. He is the prophet of the ‘partments, the one who can “see a tiny line of silver,” a “way to make a play” that others cannot.
This “play” is his art and his survival. He then delivers a stunning line about gentrification, one of the outside forces threatening his “community.” He says he will “put a bullet in Bob the fuckin’ Builder / ‘Fore they try and kick us out the building.” This is a complex, violent, and desperate statement of loyalty. He is willing to go to war to protect his “community,” even as he acknowledges that this same community is a “grave.”
JID’s verse is a masterful setup. He lays out the entire thesis: the “community” is a trap, the outside world is a threat (gentrification), the inside world is a threat (gangs), and the rap industry is a joke. He concludes by physically taking the listener from his home (“Stone Mountain, Lithonia”) to Virginia, the home of Clipse. He respectfully hands the narrative over: “I could tell you what it was, but let bruh tell you what I’m missin’.”
3. Pusha T’s P.O.V.: The Internal “Gentrifier”
Pusha T’s verse is a work of genius, picking up exactly where JID’s “Bob the Builder” metaphor left off. JID warned of the outside gentrifier who threatens to displace the community. Pusha T, in one of the most brilliant lines of his career, introduces himself as the internal gentrifier.
He raps, “What’s missin’ in my hood, I identified / Then I brought white to my hood, shit, I gentrified.”
This is a breathtaking admission. He identified what his community “missed” (money, power, opportunity) and provided a “play” (the “white,” cocaine). In doing so, he “gentrified” his own neighborhood, becoming a force of change just as powerful and disruptive as any real estate developer. This line alone reframes the entire concept of “coke rap.”
Pusha T’s role is to validate JID’s claims of “true things.” He provides the real-world resume that proves JID’s warnings are not “rap cap.” He describes himself as a “light post corner boy, green box sitter,” and confirms his come-up was “tryna hustle up an Ac’ Vigor” (a classic 1990s car).
He directly references the acclaimed TV show The Wire, claiming “niggas really live The Wire.” His verse is the “true thing” JID was talking about. He details the police presence (“Robocops on mountain bikes”) and the ever-present danger (“A week ago, a boy like me don’t got a face now”).
Like JID, Pusha T ends by connecting his personal “grind” to a systemic failure. He links the “danger” to “ADHD and all the pills that you gave us.” He posits that the “anger” that fuels the violence is a product of a system that medicated and abandoned its Black youth. This “community” does not just lack resources; it was actively poisoned.
4. Malice’s P.O.V.: The Spiritual Eulogy
If JID is the prophet and Pusha T is the unapologetic provider, Malice (No Malice) is the spiritual judge. His verse is the song’s conscience and its tragic conclusion. He provides the final “point of view,” looking back on the “community” with the grim wisdom of a survivor who has lost his soul and found it again.
He opens with the song’s most direct warning: “My ghetto’s not your culture, niggas really die here.” This is a rebuke of the listener, the “content creator” (a theme from other Let God Sort Em Out tracks), and anyone who sees this “nightmare” as entertainment.
He paints a heartbreaking picture of a “community” where trauma is normalized. “So hard to say goodbye, it’s the only lullaby here.” Death is the only constant.
Malice then masterfully explains the two paths JID set up (“jump a shot or join a gang”). He uses two iconic film references: He Got Game and Belly. In this “community,” you either become “Jesus Shuttlesworth” (the basketball prodigy who can win his way out) or “Nasirs” (the “Nas” character from Belly, the intellectual kingpin who must find his own, violent path to enlightenment).
Like his brother, Malice diagnoses the source of the “community’s” sickness. He describes the unstable “Section 8 livin’,” which is treated “like a timeshare”—a place of transit, not a home.
He then delivers a devastating systemic critique: “But never seen a father that was government devised here.” He argues that the absence of the father is a deliberate function of the system. This leads to the ultimate tragedy: “When kings can’t raise a young prince, the doves cry here.” This (referencing Prince) is a beautiful, poetic summary of the cycle of broken fatherhood.
Malice’s verse ends the song by returning to JID’s “apartments.” He gives us a final, haunting snapshot. He shows the “Candy lady” (a symbol of childhood innocence) located right next to “zombieland” (the addicts, the victims of Pusha’s “gentrification”). It is innocence and horror, side-by-side.
He concludes, “Them ‘partments be the perfect backdrop for any nightmare.” This is the final word on the “community.” It is not a home. It is a set piece for a horror movie, a “vortex” of elemental pain that, as the chorus repeats, only the “gun” can make you understand.