Juice Wrld (1998-2019) was an American rap musician. He was a leading figure in the popularization of emo rap. Emo rap is a style of music characterized by melodic rapping and emotional lyrics. Emo is short for emotional.
Juice Wrld’s real name was Jarad Anthony Higgins. He was born on Dec. 2, 1998, in Chicago. He was raised by his mother in the southwestern suburbs of Calumet Park and later Homewood. Higgins took piano lessons as a child and also learned to play the guitar and drums. He graduated from Homewood-Flossmoor Community High School in 2017.
Higgins began uploading his compositions to the music-sharing platform SoundCloud in 2015, initially under the name JuicetheKidd. He took his stage name from the 1992 motion picture Juice, which featured the American rapper Tupac Shakur. Juice Wrld’s song “All Girls Are the Same” achieved a measure of popularity after its release in 2018. Its success prompted Interscope Records to sign him to a record deal. The company released Juice Wrld’s debut album, Goodbye & Good Riddance, that same year. A song from the album, “Lucid Dreams,” reached number two on Billboard magazine’s “Hot 100” music chart.
Later in 2018, Wrld on Drugs, a collaborative album between Juice Wrld and the rap musician Future, was released. In 2019, Interscope released Juice Wrld’s second album, Death Race for Love. Posthumous releases include Legends Never Die (2020) and Fighting Demons (2021).
Juice Wrld struggled with drug addiction from an early age. He began to drink lean around age 12. Lean is a beverage containing codeine cough syrup, a soft drink, and other ingredients. Juice Wrld claimed to have been motivated to try lean by listening to the music of Future, who promoted the drink at the time. Juice Wrld talked openly about his struggles, hoping to encourage his fans to avoid substance misuse and take care of their mental health. He died of a drug overdose on Dec. 8, 2019.
