Juice Wrld

Jarad Anthony Higgins (December 2, 1998 – December 8, 2019), known professionally as Juice Wrld (pronounced "juice world"; stylized as Juice WRLD), was an American rapper, singer, and songwriter. He emerged as a leading figure in the emo and SoundCloud rap genres, which garnered mainstream attention during the mid-to-late 2010s. His stage name, which he said represents "taking over the world", was derived from the crime thriller film Juice (1992).

Higgins began his career as an independent artist in 2015 under the name JuicetheKidd, and signed a recording contract with fellow Chicago rapper Lil Bibby's Grade A Productions in 2017; he entered a joint venture with Interscope Records early the following year. He gained recognition with the diamond-certified 2018 single "Lucid Dreams", which peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100. The song preceded his triple platinum debut album Goodbye & Good Riddance (2018), which also included the Billboard Hot 100 entries "All Girls Are the Same", "Lean wit Me", "Wasted", and "Armed and Dangerous". He then released the collaborative mixtape Wrld on Drugs (2018) with Future, as well as his second album, Death Race for Love (2019); the latter contained the hit single "Robbery" and became Higgins's first number one debut on the US Billboard 200.

Higgins died of a drug overdose on December 8, 2019. His first posthumous album, Legends Never Die (2020), matched chart records for most successful posthumous debut and for most U.S. top-ten entries from one album, while the single "Come & Go" (with Marshmello) became Higgins's second song to reach number two on the Hot 100. His second posthumous album, Fighting Demons (2021), was released alongside the documentary film Juice Wrld: Into the Abyss and contained the U.S. top 20 single "Already Dead". His third posthumous album, The Party Never Ends (2024), was released alongside an appearance and virtual concert in the video game Fortnite.

Early life

Jarad Anthony Higgins was born on December 2, 1998, in Chicago, Illinois. He grew up in the south suburbs and often played in Calumet Park. He later moved to Homewood and graduated from Homewood-Flossmoor High School in 2017. His parents divorced when he was three years old. He grew up with his mother; Carmella Wallace, and older brother in a single-parent home. Higgins's father died in June 2019. Higgins's mother was very religious and conservative; she did not let him listen to hip-hop. He was allowed to listen to rock and pop music; he was introduced to artists including Billy Idol, Blink-182, Black Sabbath, Fall Out Boy, Megadeth, and Panic! at the Disco through video games like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and Guitar Hero.

Higgins was a heavy drug user during his childhood and teens. He drank lean for the first time in the sixth grade, and began using Percocet and Xanax in 2013. He smoked cigarettes before quitting during his last year of high school because of health issues.

He learned to play the piano at four years old, having been inspired by his mother who later began paying for his lessons. He then took up the guitar and drums while playing the trumpet for band class. In his sophomore year of high school, he began posting songs to SoundCloud which he recorded on his smartphone. Around that time, Higgins began to take rapping more seriously.

Career

2015–2017: Beginnings, record deal, and early projects

Higgins developed as an artist in his first year of high school. His first track, "Forever", was released on SoundCloud in 2015 under the name JuicetheKidd. Higgins recorded most of his first tracks on a cellphone, uploading them to SoundCloud in his sophomore year. He changed his name from JuicetheKidd, a name inspired by his affection for rapper Tupac Shakur's role in the film Juice, to Juice Wrld because he and his associates believed the change would benefit his career. In an interview with the Atlanta radio station WHTA, Higgins revealed that the latter part of his stage name initially had no meaning but that he came to think it "represents taking over the world". "Too Much Cash", Higgins's first track to be produced by frequent collaborator Nick Mira, was released in 2017. While releasing projects and songs on SoundCloud, Higgins worked in a factory but was dissatisfied with the job; he was fired within two weeks. After joining the internet collective Internet Money, Higgins released his debut full-length EP, 9 9 9, on June 15, 2017, with the song "Lucid Dreams" breaking out and growing his following. Higgins also briefly performed under the name Juice in early 2017.

In mid-2017, he received attention from artists such as Waka Flocka Flame and Southside, as well as fellow Chicago artists G Herbo and Lil Bibby. He subsequently signed with Lil Bibby's co-owned record label, Grade A Productions.

2017–2018: Goodbye & Good Riddance and WRLD Domination Tour

In December 2017, Higgins released the three-song EP Nothings Different. The project was covered by the hip-hop blog Lyrical Lemonade, with Higgins's track "All Girls Are the Same" gaining popularity through the blog post. An accompanying Cole Bennett-directed music video was released in February 2018. Following the video's release, Interscope Records signed Higgins for $3 million and a remix featuring Lil Yachty was previewed but never officially released. "All Girls Are the Same" was critically acclaimed, receiving a Best New Music designation from Pitchfork. It was released as a single in April. "All Girls Are the Same" and "Lucid Dreams" were Higgins's first entries on any Billboard chart, debuting on the Hot 100 at numbers 92 and 74, respectively.

On May 4, 2018, "Lucid Dreams" was officially released as a single and accompanied by a Cole Bennett-directed music video, similarly to "All Girls Are the Same". It peaked at number two on the Hot 100 and quickly became one of the most streamed songs of 2018; it remains his most-streamed song, reaching over one billion streams on Spotify by January 2020. "Lucid Dreams" was followed by "Lean Wit Me" on May 22, which peaked at number 68 on the Hot 100; Higgins's debut full-length album, Goodbye & Good Riddance, which included his three previous singles, released the following day. This album gained him much recognition and praise, along with cementing him as a rising star in the US. On June 19, he released a two-song EP titled Too Soon.. in remembrance of, and dedicated to, deceased rappers Lil Peep and XXXTentacion. Lil Peep died of an overdose in 2017 and XXXTentacion was murdered on June 18, 2018, one day before the project was released. Higgins said that he and XXXTentacion were friends and that they would have FaceTime calls together, revealing that their last conversation was about meeting up. The cover of the Too Soon.. EP is a screenshot of a conversation between Higgins and XXXTentacion. The song "Legends" from the EP debuted at number 65 on the Hot 100 and peaked at number 29 over a year later following Higgins's death.

"Wasted" (featuring Lil Uzi Vert) was released on July 10; it was Higgins's first single featuring a collaboration and the only song on Goodbye & Good Riddance with a featured guest. It debuted at number 68 on the Hot 100 and peaked at 67 in its second week on the chart. On July 11, Higgins announced that he was working on his next album. On July 20, Higgins announced his first tour, WRLD Domination, with additional acts YBN Cordae and Lil Mosey. On July 25, Higgins's producer Danny Wolf released the official version of "Motions" on SoundCloud following a series of leaks.

2018–2019: Wrld on Drugs and Death Race for Love

Travis Scott's song "No Bystanders", from his third studio album, Astroworld, featured Higgins and Sheck Wes. The song peaked at number 31 on the Billboard Hot 100. Higgins made his late night television debut performing the song "Lucid Dreams" on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on August 8, 2018. On October 15, the song "Armed and Dangerous" was released along with the music video followed by the lead single, "Fine China", from the collaborative mixtape, Wrld on Drugs with Future. Epic Records released the mixtape on October 19. He collaborated with American singer Seezyn for the song "Hide" from the film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and its soundtrack, both of which were released on December 14, 2018.