American rapper Jared Anthony Higgins, known under the pseudonym Juice Wrld, has died in Chicago at the age of 21. According to the tabloid TMZ, on December 8, the musician became ill at the airport shortly after arriving from Los Angeles, and his mouth began to bleed. Higgins was promptly taken to the hospital, but doctors were unable to save him. The exact cause of the rapper’s death is still unknown.
The Associated Press, citing a source in the airport emergency services, writes that Higgins had a heart attack. The death of the musician was also confirmed by the label Interscope Records. “Juice has had a big impact on the world in such a short period. He was an artist with a gentle soul, whose creativity knew no bounds; an exceptional person and artist who put his fans above all else, ”reads the label’s Twitter account.
What is Juice Wrld known for?
Jared Anthony Higgins was born on December 2, 1998, in Chicago, Illinois, USA. The family later moved to the southern suburb of Chicago, Homewood, where the boy enrolled in a local high school. His parents divorced when he was three years old. He learned to play the piano when he was 4 years old. At school, Jared became interested in rock and pop music and began to play the guitar and drums. While still at school, Higgins began taking drugs, which seriously undermined his health: in the last year of his studies, he was forced to drop out due to health problems.
The young man recorded his first tracks on a mobile phone. Influenced by the musical creativity of Tupac Shakur, as well as inspired by his role in the film Juice, Jared took on the pseudonym JuicetheKidd. Then Higgins changed it to Juice Wrld (because this name “represents the capture of the world,” the musician said in one of his interviews).
Juice Wrld rose to fame in 2017 by uploading two of his songs, Lucid Dreams and All Girls Are The Same, to the music-sharing platform SoundCloud. The tracks quickly became popular and brought him fame. A year later, in 2018, Juice Wrld was the most streamed artist on SoundCloud.
In the song Lucid Dreams, the rapper used samples from Sting’s 1993 hit Shape of My Heart. Sting himself later called Lucid Dreams “a really good song” and said that he was impressed by the composition. Following his success on SoundCloud, Juice Wrld signed a multimillion-dollar deal with Interscope Records.
“Rap is with us for a long time.” Art Critic on How Music Fashion Forms During his career, Juice Wrld has released two mixtapes and two studio albums. His 2018 debut album, Goodbye & Good Riddance, peaked at # 4 on the US charts, and his next album, Death Race for Love, released in March 2019, became the chart leader. The rapper won Best New Artist at the 2019 Billboard Awards.
Now, after his death, Higgins will be compared to Lil Peep and XXXTentacion. Everyone started their careers more or less the same way. All were, first of all, not about biting verses or catchy melodies, but about mood, mood, the atmosphere of drug timelessness. Everyone would have had enough tracks for six or seven albums ahead: Juice Wrld in one of his interviews admitted that he had made about 400 songs. All died at about the same age. Higgins managed to dedicate the to Lil Peep and XXXTentacion the track.
However, Juice Wrld’s music was a little different. It sounded close to Post Malone. The same sad hysterical ballads to the current beat. The same atmosphere of alienation and loss in a big city. The same heart problems, only generously flavored with substances: Higgins read a lot about this, and there was no bravado in it – rather, the realization that the best way out was to leave.
