Juice WRLD’s ‘Legends Never Die’ debuts at No.1 on Billboard 200 and has earned 497,000 equivalent alum units in the week ending July 16. What’s more fascinating is that this song replaces Pop Smoke’s ‘Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon’ at No.1 on Billboard, which is yet another posthumously released piece, now trending at No.2.
This is an iconic moment where 2 posthumous masterpiece releases have gone back-to-back in topping the Billboards and the hearts of millions!
Juice WRLD’s latest album is a reminder to each one of us that his legacy cherishes and continues to portray the maestro he was.
An unfortunate death last December, right after a week from his 21st birthday, Juice WRLD’s bizarre death caused due to accidental oxycodone and codeine overdose. Since his first steps into the spotlight of music in 2018, Juice WRLD has extensively narrated through his songs the ‘concept of death’ that reiterated the underlying emotional turmoil the young pop star was painfully immersed in.
The honesty in his lyrics, openly talking about mental health, drug abuse and heartbreaks was his perspective of reaching out to the world. His introspection in music allowed him to be an advocate for mental health and let the audience see the composed and emotional rapper he was. The Chicago rapper had many facets, much of it reflecting in his music and the few painful chapters of his life depicting his suffering in the drains of anxiety, depression and heartbreak. It continued to torment him to the extent that his fight to suppress the agony, ultimately lead to his downfall.
Unlike many artists who cruise in their fast-cars, spitting lyrics like words with no emotional significance, Juice WRLD stood out as an exception and created an image for himself. An artist who characterises lyrics to to be an impact and a sense of revelation to people. His latest song poses the notion of realism:
“Said I was okay, but I’m lying, feel like that I’m dying/ Soul screaming and crying, feel my brain frying/ Try to numb the pain, all the drugs I’ve been buying.”
What makes him truly exceptional is his unconditional dedication to making good music, talking about the importance of mental health, and never compromising on the quality of music. At 21, when you were trying to contemplate on how to make your eggs, Juice WRLD was battling bigger hurdles like ‘fighting demons’ which translates to the depression that swallowed his inner peace thoroughly. On the album’s last track he speaks of the temporal anguish while singing the lyrics, “I’m on Instagram Live from Heaven” almost as though he was predicting the awful occurrences in his life.
The world continues to hoot for Juice WRLD but to his mum, Carmella Wallce he was a simple boy named Jarad. She believed that her son, Jarad Anthony Higgins, (aka Juice WRLD) would someday be victorious in defeating the leech that is depression and his prescription drug dependency. She even mentioned in one of her interviews with Spin back in December 2019 that;
“Addiction knows no boundaries and its impact goes way beyond the person fighting it. We hope the conversations he started in his music and his legacy will help others win their battles as that is what he wanted more than anything.”
Even to this day, Wallace believes that the conversation her son started to uplift others in the same boat as him will find solutions in his music and overpower their barriers. That would truly define Juice WRLD’s success in this world.
Some may interpret his 2019 world-wide hit called, ‘Death Race for Love’ , ranging over 72 minutes, as a podcast that has depth and utter bluntness in addressing the darkest secrets we tend to avoid.
These lyrics are close enough to determine how tender Juice WRLD was, yet the magnitude of his words break down into the whim of bitterness. He never feared being his true, raw self in front of the media, so much so that one of his songs was titled, ‘HeEmotions’ putting the expectations of masculinity on a pedestal.
His three major releases, —Goodbye & Good Riddance, WRLD on Drugs, and Death Race for Love, reveal aspects of his troubled life to his fans. And his lyrics are not trendy or catchy to groove on but rather have this idea of ambiguity that reinstates the vicious circle of life. His final album is not a conclusion but the beginning of a greater pleasure that continues to preach his legacy.
Not just to be known as the ‘Emo-rapper’, Juice WRLD’s freestyle skills are out-of-this-world and add a whole new dimension to him.
Despite leaving this world on such an unsettling note, the pitch in his music is a source of positivity to his fans. His song is yet another way for him to save his fans from drowning in despair. His peers, Lil Peep and XXXTentacion, both of whom captured the raw elements of life and preached similar sentiments as JUice WRLD, lost their lives just month apart. Juice WRLD also gave a tribute to these artists back in 2018, tiled ‘Legends’, that sang, “What’s the 27 Club?/We ain’t making it past 21.” Every song he releases seems to depict his other-worldly power to predict how life would not not treat him any better after 21. And intentionally or not, his own songs became his biography and though it could not save him, it continues to stop others from destruction.
Juice WRLD never wanted to be alone in the process of recovery but today, he continues to mentor all those people enduring pain through the magic of his music.
‘Legends Never Die’ is his way of saving people from their own demons!
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