With the fanfare around Juice WRLD picking and with major labels and artists acknowledging the buzz around this Chicago prodigy, another tragedy was waiting around the corner. In other songs such as (‘Lean Wit Me’, ‘Black & White’) Juice is seen being very open about his drug addiction and its impact on his health and personal relations. Juice, in a few songs of the album (‘Lucid Dreams’, ‘All Girls are the Same’, ‘Scared of Love’) openly talks about his mental anguish and past-love interests. ‘Goodbye & Good Riddance’, Juice WRLD’s first debut album, released on May 23, 2018, and was critically received and attained commercial success. “To be so young, he mastered that so f-ing quickly. “That kid was so talented, like his freestyle he did on Tim Westwood – what the f-?” Eminem said. ‘ Lucid Dreams’, with more than one billion streams to date, is one of the most-streamed songs in music history. The release of his debut-full length EP ‘9 9 9’ in 2017 proved to be a breakthrough point in Juice’s career and placed him on the map of the emo-rap and hip-hop scene. The transition from JuicetheKidd to Juice WRLD, according to him, represented a form of taking over the world. Emerging on the SoundCloud Emo-rap scene under the name JuicetheKidd (a name drawn from his affection for the late American rapper Tupac Shakur’s and his character in the film Juice) Juice touched upon melancholic and heartbreak themes in his music, with the aim of establishing a connection with his generation a generation which found itself struggling with mental health issues, personal crises and a looming existential void. It is rightly said that an artist’s personal growth and perspective is evident in the kind of themes they incorporate and the works they release.
Juice WRLD was able to locate his angst and teenage vulnerability within two different genres: hip-hop and modern rock from the 2000s. A musical prodigy from his initial days, exposure to rock bands such as Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco and artists like Billy Idol had a tremendous impact on his musical understanding and creative imagination. His mother, Carmela Wallace, did not let him listen to hip-hop and rap but enrolled him for keyboard and guitar lessons. Juice WRLD was raised by a single mother in a devout Catholic household. Rather, today’s occasion of Juice WRLD’s birthday reminds us of the sanctity of life, and the life and legacy of this prolific artist as well as the monumental impact he was able to make in the short space of his superstardom. This piece is not a comparison between the two artists.
Thus, on Lennon’s 39th death anniversary, the world once again lost a generational talent – an artist who spoke his truth through music and believed in uniting people through his form of storytelling. He was just 21, and had celebrated his birthday six days earlier on December 2. Something along similar lines occurred on December 8, 2019, when American rapper, singer and songwriter Jarad Anthony Higgins – professionally known as ‘Juice WRLD’ – suffered a medical emergency at Chicago’s Midway International Airport and passed away from a drug overdose. But his unexpected killing in 1980 became symbolic, leaving behind a generation with questions unanswered and a gaping sadness about all that he had left to achieve artistically. Lennon, in his lifetime, achieved the status of an icon and a true great. Every year, December 8 is commemorated in the memory of the great British singer and songwriter John Lennon, a member of The Beatles.
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