Biography
Juice WRLD: biography
Early life and musical beginnings
Jarad Anthony Higgins was born in Chicago on December 2, 1998, and grew up in the city's south suburbs, largely in the care of his mother after his parents' divorce when he was three. Lessons began around age six; he took to piano, percussion and guitar quickly and also played trumpet in school band. Encyclopaedia Britannica and his label both describe a household in which music came to him early, long before rap did.
Hip-hop was not the first language of the house, so Higgins absorbed rock and pop-punk through records and video games while picking up instruments at home and at school. By his second year of high school he was recording songs on a phone and uploading them to SoundCloud as JuicetheKidd, a nod to Tupac Shakur's character in the 1992 film Juice. Freestyle rapping gradually became the focus, and he later changed the handle to Juice WRLD.
From SoundCloud to a record deal
The 2017 EP Juice WRLD 9 9 9, shaped with teenage producers DT and Nick Mira, put Higgins in front of the Chicago scene and, through the videos of Cole Bennett's Lyrical Lemonade, far beyond it. The clip for "All Girls Are the Same," posted on February 25, 2018, drew a rush of attention almost overnight, and a Bennett video for "Lucid Dreams" followed that spring.
Lil Bibby's Grade A Productions signed him in 2017, and Interscope Records entered a joint venture in 2018; Britannica reports the Interscope agreement was worth three million dollars. The single "Lucid Dreams," built on a sample of Sting's "Shape of My Heart," gave him his first major Hot 100 hit and established the melodic, confessional style that ran through his records.
Goodbye & Good Riddance and the breakthrough
Goodbye & Good Riddance arrived in May 2018 with "Lucid Dreams" and "All Girls Are the Same" as its anchors. The album climbed to No. 4 on the Billboard 200 by August of that year and became a long-running fixture of streaming-era catalogs. Billboard's chart history shows "Lucid Dreams" peaking at No. 2 on the Hot 100 the week of October 6, 2018, after debuting that May, and the song also reached No. 1 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs.
Critics heard Chicago drill, emo and pop-punk in the mix; Interscope's own artist page describes R&B instrumentation, dreamy beats and indie-rock melodicism inside the debut. The single's success set up the rest of his catalog and made him a reference point for the emo-rap wave that reshaped mainstream hip-hop in the late 2010s.
Death Race for Love and a rapid ascent
Released in March 2019, Death Race for Love debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and held the top spot for two consecutive weeks. The mixtape Future & Juice WRLD Present... WRLD on Drugs, issued in October 2018 with Future, had already reached No. 2 on the album chart. That year he toured North America with Ski Mask the Slump God and played European dates on Nicki Minaj's tour.
At the 2019 Billboard Music Awards he collected the Top New Artist trophy. Features and singles with Halsey, Marshmello, BTS, Ellie Goulding and YoungBoy Never Broke Again carried him across genre lines, and Billboard's artist biography credits him with nine Hot 100 top-10 hits over the course of his chart run.
Death on December 8, 2019
Higgins had just turned 21 and was flying privately from Los Angeles to Chicago when, during a search of the aircraft by law enforcement at Midway Airport, he suffered a seizure. He was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was pronounced dead on December 8, 2019. The Cook County medical examiner later ruled the death an accidental overdose of oxycodone and codeine.
No drug charges were filed in connection with the flight, although two men identified as members of his security detail were charged with misdemeanors over firearms and ammunition found aboard. Fans gathered in Chicago's Millennium Park in the days that followed, and his mother said she had decided to share his struggles with addiction, anxiety and depression publicly in order to help others.
The posthumous era: Legends Never Die
Interscope released Legends Never Die on July 10, 2020, compiled from recordings Higgins left behind and featuring Halsey, Marshmello, Trippie Redd, Polo G and others. It entered the Billboard 200 at No. 1 with 497,000 equivalent album units, the largest week of 2020 for any album at that point, and it topped the Official UK Albums Chart the following week.
Seventeen of its tracks landed on the Hot 100, with five inside the top 10 at the same time: "Come & Go" at No. 2, "Wishing Well" at No. 5, "Conversations" at No. 7, "Life's a Mess" at No. 9 and "Hate the Other Side" at No. 10. NME reported that configuration as only the third time an artist had placed that many songs in the top 10 simultaneously, after The Beatles and Drake.
Fighting Demons, the documentary, and Live Free 999
Fighting Demons followed in December 2021 with contributions from Justin Bieber, Trippie Redd and others, and the same month HBO premiered Juice WRLD: Into the Abyss, Tommy Oliver's documentary in the Music Box series. HBO's press materials said the film used never-before-seen footage and interviews to trace Higgins's rise, his freestyling gift and his struggles with mental health and prescription drugs; it had already taken the audience award for documentary feature at AFI Fest in November 2021.
In April 2020 his mother, Carmela Wallace, created the Live Free 999 fund, which funds and partners with organizations that provide preventative mental health services and pathways out of substance dependency. Wallace has said she established it both because of the frank conversations she had with her son about his own addiction, anxiety and depression and because fans told her that his music had helped them.
Later releases and legacy
The estate and Grade A Productions continued issuing music after 2021, culminating in the fifth studio album, The Party Never Ends, released on November 29, 2024, with appearances from Nicki Minaj, Eminem, benny blanco, Offset, Fall Out Boy and The Kid LAROI. Interscope's artist page credits Higgins with more than 80 RIAA-certified Gold and Platinum records, and "Lucid Dreams" carries diamond certification in the RIAA database.
His public legacy rests on a compact run of studio albums, a documentary, and the foundation his mother established in his name. Pitchfork and Billboard framed Legends Never Die as a landmark posthumous release, and his songs continued to reappear on charts and certification lists years after his death, keeping his short career central to the story of emo rap.
Selected moments
Career highlights
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Juice WRLD 9 9 9 EP posted to SoundCloud
Higgins's 2017 EP, produced with DT and Nick Mira, gathered the singles that drew Chicago tastemakers and video director Cole Bennett toward him.
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'All Girls Are the Same' video goes up
Lyrical Lemonade's Cole Bennett posted the video on February 25, 2018, and interest in Higgins exploded almost overnight, Britannica recounts.
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Goodbye & Good Riddance released
The debut album arrived in May 2018 anchored by 'Lucid Dreams' and 'All Girls Are the Same' and later climbed to No. 4 on the Billboard 200.
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'Lucid Dreams' peaks at No. 2 on the Hot 100
The Sting-sampling single reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 the week of October 6, 2018, after debuting that May, and hit No. 1 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs.
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Death Race for Love debuts at No. 1
His second studio album opened atop the Billboard 200 on the chart dated March 23, 2019, and spent two consecutive weeks in the top slot.
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Billboard Music Award for Top New Artist
Higgins accepted the rising-star prize at the 2019 Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas, a career high reached months before his death.
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Dies in Oak Lawn, Illinois, at 21
Six days after his birthday, Higgins suffered a seizure during a search of his flight at Midway Airport and was pronounced dead at a hospital in Oak Lawn.
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Live Free 999 fund founded
His mother, Carmela Wallace, announced the fund on April 22, 2020, to support youth mental health programs and open conversations about addiction.
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Legends Never Die tops the Billboard 200
The first posthumous album entered at No. 1 with 497,000 equivalent units, the biggest opening week of 2020 at the time of its release.
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Five top-10 hits in a single week
Five songs from Legends Never Die ranked in the Hot 100's top 10 at once, a feat NME reported only The Beatles and Drake had managed before him.
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American Music Award for Favorite Male Artist – Rap/Hip-Hop
Voters gave him the fan-voted AMA in November 2020, about a year after his death, as listed in the official winners announcement.
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The Party Never Ends released
The fifth studio album arrived on November 29, 2024, through Grade A and Interscope, with guests including Nicki Minaj, Eminem and Fall Out Boy.
Recognition
Awards and honors
Juice WRLD won major industry awards during his lifetime and gathered further honors after his death. Billboard named him its Top New Artist in 2019, American Music Awards voters chose him as Favorite Male Artist – Rap/Hip-Hop in 2020, and the documentary Juice WRLD: Into the Abyss won the documentary feature audience award at AFI Fest in 2021.
- Billboard Music Awards won
- 1
- American Music Awards won
- 1
| Year | Award | Category | Work |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Billboard Music Awards | Top New ArtistWinner | |
| 2020 | American Music Awards | Favorite Male Artist – Rap/Hip-HopWinner | |
| 2021 | AFI Fest Documentary Audience Award | Documentary FeatureWinner | Juice WRLD: Into the Abyss |