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00:00Just days after turning 21, SoundCloud rapper Juice WRLD passed away unexpectedly following
00:06a seizure on December 8th, 2019.
00:09He may have only spent a couple of years in the music industry, but his patented brand
00:14of emo rap defied genres and received accolades.
00:18This is the untold truth of his life.
00:21It's hard to imagine Juice WRLD, aka Jared Higgins, as anything other than a rapper,
00:26but toward the end of the SoundCloud star's teen years, he briefly held down a day job,
00:31biding his time until he made it big.
00:34According to XXL magazine, he picked up a job at a factory making car parts while he
00:38tried to build his SoundCloud presence.
00:41But college wasn't really an option for this rapper.
00:44In an interview with Vulture, the singer-songwriter revealed,
00:47"'I never thought about college, but my mom thought about it for me.
00:51I knew 100 percent it wasn't for me.
00:53I would have been going for all the wrong reasons.
00:56I'd go, but it would have to be for something I'm passionate about.'"
01:00In the end, Juice WRLD never had to make the choice between grinding at a meager day
01:04job or getting a degree.
01:06He was discovered at the ripe age of 18, the same age most people head out for their freshman
01:11year of college.
01:12Juice WRLD's success wasn't meticulously planned out.
01:16In fact, it wasn't even planned out at all.
01:19According to Complex, the rapper freestyled virtually everything, including his hits Lucid Dreams
01:24and All Girls Are the Same, which translated into the way the musician ran his business.
01:29The singer started completely DIY.
01:32The New York Times reports that Juice WRLD was around 15 years old when he started recording
01:36songs with his cell phone and putting them online under the stage name of Juice the Kid.
01:42At the age of 18, he was discovered by Lil Bibby and G-Money, who signed him to Grade A Productions.
01:48Then, in 2018, he finally got his major label shot.
01:52According to Billboard, Juice WRLD signed a deal worth more than $3 million with Interscope.
01:57But again, the success was still kind of random.
02:00In an interview with Complex, Juice WRLD admitted that he didn't have any strategy when it came
02:05to releasing music, noting that the attention just came on its own within six to eight months
02:10of uploading his music to SoundCloud and saying he just went with his gut instinct.
02:15Juice WRLD's instincts clearly paid off, considering Lucid Dreams was already certified six times
02:20platinum just before Juice WRLD passed away.
02:23When Juice WRLD was a kid, he wouldn't have been allowed to listen to his own music.
02:27In an interview with Complex, the rap star revealed that his mother was a, quote, real conservative
02:33and wouldn't let him listen to the genre.
02:35Instead, Juice WRLD's mom preferred gospel music, and the singer was only introduced to the
02:40world of rap through his cousins.
02:42As it turns out, the songs he snuck behind his mama's back were exactly what taught him
02:46how to rap.
02:47Juice WRLD told the media outlet,
02:49"...I remember my cousins let me listen to old Gucci, old Wayne, old Birdman.
02:54I couldn't remember the lyrics, so I would just finish them myself, and that's how it
02:58would start."
02:59That said, the rapper went on to tell Complex that his mom had since opened up to the idea
03:04of him being a professional rapper.
03:06Who wouldn't be proud of their son being a platinum-selling music star?
03:09She listened to it, and then she texted me and was like, yeah, I just heard all your
03:13music, and it was like, obviously she wasn't rocking with it.
03:18Most modern pop songs have a team of writers who work for days, weeks, or sometimes even
03:23months to perfect the track.
03:25For comparison, Juice WRLD wrote his hit 2018 single Lucid Dreams in about the same amount
03:30of time it takes to shower before work.
03:33In an interview with Billboard, Juice WRLD revealed that he was a senior in high school
03:37when he sat down on the couch in his living room and came up with the chorus and verses
03:41of the song.
03:42It only took him about 20 minutes to lay it down once he got to the studio, and that 20
03:47minutes changed his entire life.
03:49But by 2019, the song became so famous that the rapper was absolutely sick of it.
03:55In an interview with NME, he admitted he hated it, quote, with a passion, saying,
03:59It's getting tired to me.
04:01I still play it, but I'm glad I dropped the album."
04:04Fans seem to disagree.
04:05According to Forbes, the track had more than 980 million streams on Spotify as of December
04:112019.
04:13Lucid Dreams might have made Juice WRLD famous, but it didn't make him a lot of money.
04:18It did, however, make Sting a lot of money.
04:20Speaking to Billboard, the English artist joked that royalties from the song were going to
04:24put his grandkids through college.
04:26How?
04:27In case you weren't following music Twitter closely in 2018, Juice WRLD's track samples
04:32Sting's 1993 single, Shape of My Heart.
04:35As a result, Sting was a credited writer who got 85 percent of the royalties, according
04:40to a since-deleted tweet from the song's producer, Nick Mira.
04:44For his part, Juice WRLD told NME that the real number was actually higher.
04:49Either way, he wasn't sweating it.
04:51He said,
04:52This song is so much more expensive than money and what money can buy.
04:56It's so much more touching than what money could touch.
04:59That song really saved lives.
05:01Without Sting, this wouldn't even be a song.
05:03I don't really trip on money, especially with a song like that, with the reaction it's had
05:08from everybody.
05:09Following Juice WRLD's death, Sting told CNN that out of all the covers and interpolations
05:13of Shape of My Heart that exist out there, Lucid Dreams was his favorite one, and that
05:18he thinks it will, quote, resonate for years to come.
05:21I'm totally open to hearing what people do with that as a basis.
05:25It's exciting to hear that.
05:27Sting wasn't the only artist to ask for royalties from Lucid Dreams.
05:31Juice WRLD was also sued by the now-defunct pop-punk band Yellowcard, which rose to prominence
05:36in the early aughts with the mega-hit Ocean Avenue.
05:39According to reports from The Blast and Billboard, the 2019 suit claimed Juice WRLD copied melodic
05:45elements from the band's 2006 song Hollywood Died and referenced how he'd publicly repped
05:51emo pop-rock bands and became a fan of the genre in fifth grade.
05:55According to the suit, the rapper would have been a fifth grader the year Hollywood Dead
05:59was released and the year after Fall Out Boy dropped From Under the Cork Tree, which shared
06:03a producer with Yellowcard's album and happened to be one of Juice WRLD's favorites, according
06:08to Billboard.
06:09The band sought $15 million in damages and a royalty or ownership share of the track.
06:16Anyone who's listened to Juice WRLD's lyrics knows the rapper was an emo kid at heart.
06:20He might have grown up secretly listening to rap behind his mother's back, but he also
06:24had a penchant for a good pop-punk song.
06:27Per The New York Times, he discovered emo and punk music the same way emo kids of the
06:32early aughts found their favorite bands, by playing 2001's Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3.
06:38Juice WRLD happened to be a fan of early aughts game consoles, and though the game wasn't
06:43enough to make him run off and join the Black Parade, he did tell GQ in May 2019 that the
06:48one person he wanted to work with next was Buddy Nielsen, the lead singer of Sense's Vale.
06:53Yep, Juice WRLD's emo roots went pretty deep.
06:56GQ reported that he started playing Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam during middle school, which
07:01introduced him to bands like Weezer and Green Day.
07:04He also started listening to Black Veil Brides because his fifth-grade crush liked that kind
07:09of music.
07:10Juice WRLD sadly struggled with substance abuse since he was a kid.
07:14According to XXL Magazine, he started sipping lean, or codeine cough syrup, when he began listening
07:19to Future in the sixth grade.
07:22The New York Times reports that he graduated to prescription pills in high school, and during
07:26an interview with NME, the star admitted he was drinking Listerline, a mix of Sprite and
07:31Listerine.
07:32Per a 2018 interview in Vulture, Juice WRLD was trying to separate himself from a life of
07:37drug use, which isn't an easy feat if you're already in the throes of an addiction.
07:42The following year, he was still considering getting off narcotics, one way or another.
07:47After a drug scare in July 2019, he took to Twitter to announce that he was quitting
07:52codeine, but it's unclear if he was able to kick the habit for good.
07:56The rapper told the New York Times,
07:58"...every now and then I have concerns, but at the end of the day, I'll be fine.
08:02I was put on this earth for a reason."
08:05Juice WRLD was young, but he knew love when he felt it.
08:08His relationship with Ally Lottie was an absolute whirlwind, and she remained by his side pretty
08:13much from the moment they first met to his very last day on this planet.
08:18According to his 2019 GQ profile, the rapper met the social media influencer when she sent
08:23him a message on Instagram as a fan.
08:26They met in person for the first time in Rhode Island, and their first date ended up lasting
08:30four days.
08:32Shortly after, she moved out of her Memphis home to be with the rapper in Los Angeles.
08:37She had to have everything shipped to her, including her two dogs, but she never once
08:41looked back.
08:43In just a couple of years, Juice WRLD has made a massive impact to the music industry.
08:48According to Billboard, the star made 25 appearances on the Billboard Hot 100 in less than two years.
08:54That's an achievement that's all the more unbelievable when you consider that he got a start singing
08:58into his cell phone.
09:00Both All the Girls Are the Same and Lucid Dreams debuted toward the bottom of the Hot 100
09:05in 2018, but Lucid Dreams quickly started climbing into the top 40.
09:10Since then, Juice WRLD's top tracks have included Find China, which featured Future and peaked
09:15at No. 26, Bandit, which featured NBA Youngboy and hit No. 10, and of course, Lucid Dreams,
09:22which skyrocketed to No. 2 and spent a month in the top 10.
09:26Juice WRLD ended up topping Billboard's Artist Hot 100 chart in early 2019.
09:31Beyond his success on the Billboard charts, Juice WRLD was also named Spotify's No. 4 Most
09:37Streamed Male Artist of 2019 in the United States.
09:41Juice WRLD never rapped for the money.
09:43His goal was always to help people get through the same tough stuff that he experienced throughout
09:48his life.
09:49In fact, he told NME that he purposely rapped about the dark side of drugs to shed light
09:54on that sort of lifestyle.
09:55There's still other issues to talk about other than heartbreak.
09:59You got anxiety, you got substance abuse, you know, there's a lot of issues in the world
10:03to talk about.
10:04Judging from an interview with Vulture, Juice WRLD went above and beyond to help his fans
10:08throughout his short lifetime.
10:11Though he was often playing stadiums towards the end of his career, he revealed that he
10:15liked smaller shows because he could have conversations with fans and, quote, talk through whatever
10:20demons they're fighting.
10:21He also told NME that he made music to help others, and it seems like it was working, considering
10:27people reportedly told him that he saved lives all the time.
10:31It's clear the rapper felt a strong responsibility and didn't plan on stopping.
10:35He told Vulture,
10:36"...I'm gonna still lead people through whatever they're going through, and since I've gone
10:40through it, I could forever speak on it, no matter how I feel.
10:44I could be happy and make a song for people that's dealing with depression.
10:48I could be sad and make a song that will make people smile and be joyful."
10:52Juice WRLD's tragic passing shocked more than just the rap world.
10:56The singer managed to completely defy genres, landing collaborations with Panic at the Disco's
11:01Brendon Urie and singer Ellie Goulding.
11:04In many ways, he pushed SoundCloud's wave of emo rap into the mainstream, but still suffered
11:09the same fate as some of his fellow internet rap pioneers.
11:14Fans have noticed that the gutting track Legends from Too Soon may have eerily predicted the
11:18rapper's own death.
11:20The 2018 EP was originally meant to be a tribute to late rappers Lil Peep and XXXTentacion.
11:26Ultimately, Legends saw Juice WRLD question his own mortality, singing, quote,
11:31"...we ain't making it past 21."
11:34The line proved darkly prophetic, holding true for all three of the SoundCloud rap pioneers,
11:39each of whom did indeed end up dying tragically young.
11:43If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, please call the Substance Abuse and
11:47Mental Health Administration's 24-7 National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.
11:53That's 1-800-662-4357.
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