Juice WRLD

South suburban beginnings

Jarad Anthony Higgins was born on December 2, 1998, in Chicago and raised in the south suburb of Homewood, graduating from Homewood-Flossmoor High School in 2017. He uploaded his first track in 2015 under the name JuicetheKidd and released the EP “9 9 9” in June 2017 on SoundCloud, where “Lucid Dreams” and “All Girls Are the Same” built a large following.

Interscope breakthrough

After signing with Grade A Productions in mid-2017, Higgins joined Interscope Records in early 2018 in a deal reported at $3 million. His debut album “Goodbye & Good Riddance” (May 2018) peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 and was later certified 5× platinum. “Lucid Dreams” reached No. 2 on the Hot 100. In October 2018 he released the collaborative mixtape “Wrld on Drugs” with Future, which peaked at No. 2.

Death Race for Love

His second album “Death Race for Love” (March 2019) debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. On December 8, 2019, he suffered a seizure after landing at Chicago’s Midway Airport and was pronounced dead at a hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois; the cause was later determined to be oxycodone and codeine toxicity. He was 21.

Posthumous legacy

“Legends Never Die” (July 2020) opened at No. 1 and tied records for the biggest posthumous debut and most U.S. top-ten songs from one album, including “Wishing Well” at No. 5. He posthumously won the 2020 American Music Award for Favorite Male Artist, Rap/Hip-Hop. “Fighting Demons” (2021) reached No. 2, and “The Party Never Ends” (November 2024), billed as his final album, peaked at No. 4. He is widely regarded as a defining figure of emo and SoundCloud rap.

Read the story: Chicago Rap, Decade by Decade: From Hip House to Drill