Juice WRLD

October 3, 2019 at PDT

Bandit - Single

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May 22, 2018 at PDT

Goodbye & Good Riddance

Like hearing a stranger overshare on the bus, it's impossible to ignore Juice WRLD's laments. On his major-label debut, and the first of just two full-length albums released before his passing December 2019, the Chicago rapper processed a nasty breakup by plunging into the depths of his grief and regret. Much like Lil Peep, who also passed away at age 21 two years earlier, he uses emo and trap as primary tools, with blown-out, sing-song Auto-Tune vocals accompanied by depth-charge beats and spare guitar. He lashes out on tracks like “All Girls Are the Same” and “Lucid Dreams” (“I was tangled up in your drastic ways/Who knew evil girls have the prettiest face?") and numbed the pain with intoxicants and dark nihilism (“Candles,” “Hurt Me”), but ends on a hopeful note on “I'll Be Fine” (“Too busy making money to worry 'bout making memories”).

16 Tracks

October 14, 2018 at PDT

Armed and Dangerous - Single

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June 21, 2018 at PDT

Legends - Single

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July 9, 2020 at PDT

Legends Never Die

It's not easy to listen to Legends Never Die. From the album's opening moments, which feature clips of the late Juice WRLD's voice in interviews and closing out a show, we're reminded that he wasn't the sum of the demons he exorcised in his songs; he wanted to be a positive force in a world that so often feels negative. “I love myself so much as far as the way I make music, the way God made me, the way God wired me to do the things that I do and to change the world the way that I can,” he says. At the time of his death, in December 2019 at the age of 21, the Chicago rapper had cemented himself as a bona fide star whose vulnerability on wax was transcendent. Here, on the first posthumous album since, he gains immortality.

The unblinking candor that made Juice WRLD such a force comes full circle throughout the course of the project. Every revelation lands like a prophecy and every rare buoyant moment a light at the end of an endless tunnel. On wrenching songs like “Righteous” and “Fighting Demons,” when he explicitly battles with addiction as a means of coping and the ways in which material success is rarely ever salvation, the heart shatters all over again. But then there's others, like “Screw Juice” or “Man of the Year,” which find him urging listeners to use his battle as motivation: “Let's raise our hands, let's sing and dance,” he declares on the latter. “I know my lyrics saved you.” Elsewhere, the single “Life's a Mess”—which best captures his ability to connect with audiences far beyond the emo rap genre while remaining true to its essence—manages to sound triumphant in spite of itself, like a reason to fight on.

As posthumous albums go, this one scans as true to the creative vision Juice WRLD cultivated for himself. His diaristic laments aren't sanitized or watered down in an attempt to mute the pain of his reality, and thus, under the circumstances, these songs feel especially brutal and honest. It's an effective eulogy that captures the charismatic artist as his fans had come to know him—complicated but hopeful. Despite the turmoil that plagues these lyrics being no different than those he released in his lifetime, one thing remains clear: Juice WRLD wanted to live. And with every elegiac confession, even from beyond the grave, he implores his fans to find ways to do the same.

21 Tracks

June 25, 2019 at PDT

Hate Me - Single

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October 18, 2018 at PDT

Future & Juice WRLD Present... WRLD ON DRUGS

If Goodbye & Good Riddance was Juice WRLD’s coming-out, his mixtape with Future, WRLD ON DRUGS, details the decadent after-party. Gone are the woeful feels that propelled the late Chicago rapper into the emo/hip-hop stratosphere. In their place are euphoric end-zone celebrations with his new BFF, the godfather of the current wave of Auto-Tuned rap crooners cosigning one of his upstart scions. Together, they formed a potent tag team whose melodic styles complement and often play off each other. They go boast-for-boast on “Fine China” and count stacks with Young Thug on “Red Bentley.” Songs like “Oxy” and “Ain’t Livin Right” echo the nihilistic tone set by Goodbye tracks “Lean Wit Me” and “Black & White.” And when the intoxicants wear off, Future is left with bleary-eyed moments of clarity (“Afterlife”). Then on “Hard Work Pays Off,” the two tally the wins and losses and toast with plastic cups.

16 Tracks

December 6, 2019 at PST

Let Me Know (I Wonder Why Freestyle) - Single

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March 12, 2020 at PDT

Suicidal (Remix) [feat. Juice WRLD] - Single

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August 6, 2020 at PDT

Smile - Single

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July 9, 2018 at PDT

Wasted (feat. Lil Uzi Vert) - Single

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April 23, 2020 at PDT

Righteous - Single

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July 9, 2020 at PDT

Legends Never Die (Video Version)

Surfacing seven months after his tragic passing, Juice WRLD’s 2020 LP, Legends Never Die, is the rare posthumous release to feel like one of an artist’s major statements. The project is indicative of the exciting and fresh direction in which Juice’s music might have headed if he were alive. In both music and lyrics, it stands as the most varied Juice WRLD release, finding him breaking out of his more broad-strokes treatises on romantic angst, drug abuse, and other dark themes and turning toward clearer, detail-oriented autobiography. The video version of the LP includes videos featuring animation, archival footage, and more, providing an epilogue to the music that celebrates Juice’s life and examines his legacy.

Hauntingly, the lyrics on Legends Never Die feel more prescient than anything released before his death. On the mournful “Wishing Well,” Juice sings: “Let’s be for real/If it wasn’t for the pills, I wouldn’t be here/But if I keep taking these pills, I won’t be here, yeah/I just told y’all my secret, yeah.” In the computer-animated video for the song—included in this release—the rapper battles his way through a hallucinatory minefield of a world where gravity is suspended and threatening emojis chase and crowd him. The uncanny clarity of lyrics in songs like these points up the major difference between Legends Never Die and Juice’s formative releases: Having developed his character based on himself, he is often reacting to fame directly on these songs, sketching out an explicit road map for his anxiety and existential despair. (See also his snapshot of a self-destructive night in London on the explicit emo homage “Man of The Year”).

As on the previous Juice WRLD release, 2019’s Death Race For Love, the young star also carves out a fair amount of new musical ground for himself in these songs, seemingly pushing away from being pigeonholed merely as a rapper. Amid the expected emo-trap anthems, the record’s singles find him venturing into more explicitly Top 40–oriented territory than ever before—specifically, the inspirational, Marshmello-featuring EDM-rock track “Come & Go.” There is also a bittersweet trap-pop ballad with Halsey, “Life’s a Mess,” dramatizing two flawed people attempting to find common ground to support each other.

27 Tracks

June 21, 2018 at PDT

Rich and Blind - Single

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January 14, 2021 at PST

Bad Boy - Single

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August 29, 2019 at PDT

Graduation - Single

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December 7, 2020 at PST

Reminds Me of You - Single

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August 14, 2019 at PDT

Ransom (Remix) - Single

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December 9, 2021 at PST

Fighting Demons

Released nearly two years to the day after his tragic death, Juice WRLD's second posthumous album sounds even more haunted than the first. As the title suggests, the songs here hinge on the rapper's inner battles, and it's a brutal listen. He goes round after round with his addictions, mental health, and self-destructive behaviors, seemingly fighting back and giving up in turns. Metro Boomin's gorgeous string-propelled production on opening track “Burn” brims with melancholy to set the mood for what's to come—as Juice declares midway through, “The truth hurts, let it bleed out.”

And there are many painful truths to reckon with on Fighting Demons. “Rockstar in His Prime” dispels the notion that money and fame are any match for inner turmoil and the quest to numb or escape it. His dance with death, whether as a lifeline or a foregone conclusion, exposes the depth of darkness that can poison a mind; what is a platitude to someone who, as he admits on the harrowing “Already Dead,” hasn't felt alive in years? It's uncomfortable but worthwhile to understand what a person is up against and to consider that the act of saying it aloud, without fear of judgment, may not be glorification but a potential path to healing.

When the possibility of better days seems tenuous at best, Juice still finds a way to summon something akin to optimism. “Understand, none of these drugs make the person I am/Sober up, I can, sorry but I can't,” he raps on “Feel Alone,” before falling into his signature melodies: “Hope to see tomorrow, the potency of sorrow/I was thinking hopefully, maybe hopefully, there's some dopamine I could borrow.” The candor in his lyrics, spilling out in detail like private journal entries, is relentless, but his courage to share anyway is inspiring. Fighting Demons is as much a cautionary tale as a heroic one—may we never forget that Juice fought for his life until the very end, as the tenacity of his artistry continues to shine beyond the grave.

18 Tracks

January 8, 2019 at PST

Without Me (feat. Juice WRLD) - Single

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February 1, 2022 at PST

Cigarettes - Single

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November 11, 2021 at PST

Already Dead - Single

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June 14, 2017 at PDT

Lucid Dreams - Single

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October 27, 2022 at PDT

In My Head - Single

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