Artist Profile: Juice WRLD

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Universal Music Group

(Image via Digital Music News)

Jelani Dupon, Writer

Juice WRLD, also known as Jarad Anthony Higgins, was born December 2nd, 1998 in Chicago Illinois. Juice WRLD’s first song ever, titled Forever was released on Soundcloud under the name JuicetheKidd. He named himself this because of the movie Juice, a movie that starred the late Tupac Shakur as the main character, one of his favorite rappers, he later changed his name to Juice WRLD because he wanted his message to be spread across the world. He released an EP called Too Soon, it had two songs, “Legends” and “Rich and Blind” On “Legends” he talks about rap legends that had tragically passed away (Lil Peep and XXXTentacion), at the time the most recent rapper that had passed was XXXTentacion, a Florida born rapper who was killed in the summer of 2018. He talks about how they all die too soon, saying “ This time, it was so unexpected. Last time, it was the drugs he was lacing, all legends fall in the making… What’s the 27 club? We ain’t making it past 21.” Juice WRLD has been interested in music since he was 4 years old, he knows how to play piano and took guitar and drum lessons. As a teenager Juice was addicted to drugs, using drugs like Zanax and sipping lean. He even smoked cigarettes but had to quit due to health conditions. Fast forward to 2017, he gained the public eye with a single that he released called All Girls Are The Same, in the song he talks about how all the girls he gets with breaks his heart, these breakups make him depressed and he talks about drinking to avoid the pain. “I just want real love, guess it’s been a minute, pissed off from the way I don’t fit it, I don’t fit in.” Although most people thought he would be a one-hit-wonder, he soon after released his debut album Goodbye & Good Riddance, which went platinum under the record label Interscope Records. His biggest song, Lucid Dreams, was on this album, in this song he talks about missing a girl and the heartbreak of it, similar to the last song. “I still see your shadows in my room, can’t take back the love that I gave you, it’s to the point where I love and I hate you, and I cannot change you so I must replace you.” These songs got big because they’re relatable to almost anyone. Juice WRLD later collaborated with Future on the mixtape Wrld on Drugs (2018), a popular song. After this, he released his second album Death Race for Love (2019) which soared to number-one on the Billboard 200. Juice also collaborated with Travis Scott on his album Astroworld and was on the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse soundtrack. He was nominated for 15 awards in his four-year music career. Juice WRLD tragically passed away on December 8th, 2019 after landing in Illinois, a seizure took his life, he was only twenty-two years old. He died a young artist that had much more potential. We will never know how far his career would’ve went, we can still say that he was a late-legend who, although gone, had impactful music.