Before Juice World would clock in over 10 Million followers on Instagram & Twitter,
surpass a Billion views on his own YouTube channel and be booked to headline Rolling
Loud in Los Angeles
this December.
Before Lucid Dreams, a song that was reportedly completed within fifteen minutes, would peak
at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and would go on to be certified 5x platinum becoming
one of the most popular songs of 2018.
Before Juice Wrld would get hit with a $15 Million dollar law suit by now defunt Florida
Rock group YellowCard, a song that he already paid out 85% in royalties to Sting.
In regards to this he humbly replied: Lost millions made millions...the song impacted
to many ppl in a good way for me to be upset over it
..there’s always more money to be made and I will make it so.
I've seen a ton of artists come up over the years but either I was just getting on the
internet or these stars had made it before I started this show, I felt like I had missed
witness to some part of their journey.
Juice Wrld, is an exception...
I witnessed that mans career from start to finish and can truly say he was a one of a
kind talent.
He wasn't in the SoundCloud freshman class but came up few years later and here were
a ton of things the separated him from his counterparts.
For one, the music, he was emo, he grew up on rock and showed a great appreciation for
a wide variety of genres and was a self described old soul.
He also rapped about depression, addiction and heartbreak which are themes often overlooked
in hip hop.
On top of all this, he was a world famous but had decided to lock it down in a committed
relationship.
Our prayers go out to his girlfriend and family.
The dude was an all around lovable guy and at 21 years of age he had lived more than
most of us ever will.
With that said, he also had a long history of drug use.
Despite his own awareness and fears of drug use and dieing at a young age it makes it
all the more tragic for the world to lose such a bright talent so young in an era where
we've lost too many already.
It's with a heavy heart we are bringing you this video in tribute of Juice Wrld 999 in
a video we have titled Gone But Not Forgotten.
When a star passes away, especially one whose reached mainstream success so young like Juice
Wrld, well the entire world stops when reacting to the news.
I've received thousands of requests in my DM's and in the comments to get this video
done.
If your a long time fan, or just want to know more about this man we hope you find that
these videos are done with the upmost respect.
Please your condolences in the comments down below.
By now, you all know who I am so let's get into the video.
Juice Wrld 999 was born Jared Higgins on December 2, 1998, in the windy city of Chicago Illinois
and a year after his birth his family moved to the south suburbs to the area of Homewood.
In one of the few still public posts about his childhood from his birthday last year
the caption reads: Still got the same devious facial expression
as I look at the wrld.. blessed to see 20 pray to see many more
Damn!
That hits hard and we are just getting started
. His parents split up when he was still a toddler and from there on out, him and his
older brother would only see pops from time to time.
He lived with his mom and had a key to his dad's place but for the most part it was a
one parent upbringing.
He told Billboard:
I didn’t have a man giving me no type of guidance.
My father wasn’t in my life like that.
In a throwback photo of him the other I believe is his brother, the caption reads:
Polo and some cheap trues Me and moms shared a room
Clean shoes, only 2 pairs ain’t know what to do
Cuzzo drove a Jetta good condition wit no leg room
2 sad songs later gotta pocket full of dead dudes ?￰
He would credit his mom regularly for her hard work in raising him and she was very
religious and forbid him from listening to rap music.
He told Complex:
My mom was real conservative, on some old hardcore Christian-a** s***.
He learned to play the piano at a young age and followed up this up by learning to play
the guitar, trumpet and drums which he initially fell in love with through Guitar Hero.
He also enjoyed playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater and through video games he was first introduced
to rock music and found an early interest in artists like Panic at the Disco, Black
Sabbath, Fall Out Boy, Billy Idol, Paramore, Black Veil Brides, Senses Fail, Bullet For
My Valentine and more.
Growing up with access to the internet allowed young Jared to explore a plethera of new music
genres to explore.
From Weird Al Yankovich's parody of Smells Like Nirvana opening the doors for him to
fall in love with the real things and Start Smelling Like Teen Spirit himself.
in the fifth grade he developed his first hard core crush on a girl who was obsessed
with emo music, naturally this only enhanced his interest in the genre and to connect with
lyrcis in songs about heartbreak, angst, depression and more.
That same year he was also diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and his mom put
him on Ritalin and Vyvanse, something he later regretted, telling Vulture:
I looked back at it and I’m like, Wow, that was not okay.
I’m in fifth grade.
What am I doing taking Vyvanse and Ritalin?
How is a fifth-grader supposed to act?
Against his mothers wishes young Jared began to discover more urban sounds introduced to
him by his brother and cousin.
He started heavily listening to rap artists like Jeezy, Gucci Mane, Big Sean, and Lil
Wayne but his personal interests gravitated more towardds artists from his native Chicago.
This included Chief Keef, Lil Durk and Kanye West's 808s and heartbreaks quickly became
one his all time favorite albums.
It wouldn't be long before he would begin experimenting with other drugs not prescribed
by a doctor but instead those he was learning about through music.
Slowly but surely he began to freestyle for his friends and by the 6th or 7th grade he
was writing his own lyrics and spitting rhymes at lunchtime.
He attended Homewood Flossmoor High School and
it was there in his sophomore year of high school that he began to take his rapping seriously.
He told Elevator magazine.
I used to just do that freestyling s*** for fun, but then my friends started telling me
I could do this s*** for real,
so I started taking it seriously when I was about 16.
High school also opened up the door for new experiences, while his friends were smoking
weed he began dabbling in taking percs and xans.
At drug which at the time Juice admitted wasn't even cool but he liked the way it made him
feel
Initially he rapped under the name Juice The Kid and was inspired by one of the greats.
As he explained it,
I use to have a Juice cut.
Like you know Tupac, from the movie Juice?
That was also around the time I started rapping for real and I was just thinking about names
and I was like, 'Imma go by Juice since I got a juice cut.'
It was just corny enough to work.
Honestly, I'm not even sure where the word 'Wrld' came from.
I was just trying to be creative.
Juice The Kidd would be putting on shows for his peers with his first ever live performance
taking place at a Chicago rec center.
The crowd, which was comprised of classmates and friends, was receptive to his music and
for his efforts he earned $100 for his first performance.
He also gave the odd interview to his friends at school who were starting a radio show and
gave him his first opportunity to freestyle to a live audience.
Remind you he had to do all this without uttering a swear word.
His initial recordings he made over his iphone and he began uploading these to Soundcloud
in 2015.
Tracks included Make It There, Lost My Mind, and his very first release, Forever which
now boasts over 4.7 Million streams.
With his music career starting to prove promising he had lost all interest in ever going to
college.
Throughout high school, he kept recording and releasing music, but his dedication would
take time to pay off.
He actually ended up working at a factory for a short period of time, but quickly realized
that this wasn’t the type of future he wanted for himself and he was eventually fired, speaking
on this short stint he stated:
Bro, that s*** was horrible.
I hated it...Nine to five wasn't for me at all.
The people there tripped out and it made me sad because there were people there that have
been doing that s*** for 20 plus years.
During his senior year of high school, One of Juice’s videos ended up getting
10,000 views - That was the moment where he first felt he had made it.
He began working with producer Nick Mira after joining the collective Internet Money.
Juice said that Mira was one of the first people to help him improve as an artist, and
together they created the track Too Much Cash.
The song that would change everything for Juice Wrld of course was Lucid Dreams.
A song that was recorded within 15 minutes and Lyrics that are now known the world over.
At first Juice had no idea that the song barred similarities to other works of art that would
cause him legal trouble once money was being made.
Speaking on this he told Vulture:
My mom told me that [the song] sampled Sting, so I went back and listened to his version.
I haven't heard from Sting, but he said publicly that 'Lucid Dreams' was a beautiful interpretation
of 'Shape of My Heart.'
Uploaded to SoundCloud the track immediately found an audience with over 2 Million streams.
It also got Juice some attention from Chicago's very own Lil Bibby.
Bibby who was the first to go all in on taking the then-relatively unknown artist's career
to the next level.
Putting his money and resources where his mouth is signing Juice to Grade A Productions.
From there, there was a bidding war amongst various labels with Interscope ultimately
coming out on top with a reported $3 Million dollar deal.
In 2017 the world got Juice WRLD's three-song EP Nothings Different with the official release
of Lucid Dreams, All Girls Are The Same.
From there he was working with the likes of Lil Uzi Vert, Cole Bennett at Lyrical Lemonaid
and would perform on Jimmy Kimmel.
It wasn't long before he was getting nominated for BET Award for Best New Hip Hop Artist
and an MTV Video Music Award.
He won a Billboard Music Award for Top New Artist.
He toured with Nicki Minaj, and put out two studio albums Goodbye & Good riddance & Death
Race For Love.
There was also the track Legends which is likely going to go down in history now following
his passing.
In the track off his 2018 Too Soon Ep he paid tripuce to Lil Peep and Xxxtentacions passing
where he rapped.
What's the 27 club?
We ain't making it past 21.
He also rapped about his own drug use and called himself the Codeine Cobain.
On jhis 2018 track ‘Waiting For The Drugs To Hit Me’ Juice rapped: “Codeine in my
cup I carry it to every city.”
While doing interviews, Juice Wrld was open to talk about his own history of drug use
and was vocal about his own strides at sobriety.
In a 2019 interview with NME magazine The article’s writer, Jordan Bassett, noted
that Juice Wrld made these comments while drinking “a homemade concoction of Sprite
he keeps topping up, alarmingly, with actual Listerine.
There he stated:
[Drugs] can ruin your whole life.
If they don’t kill you, they can leave you in a trance for the rest of your life.
Most f***ing rappers rap about getting high and feeling great.
But I talk about the good side and the bad side.
Just to shed some light on the negative side.
On December 2nd 2019, Juice had celebrated having made it to his 21st birthday.
Something he wrapped about on Legends “What’s the 27 Club?
We ain’t making it past 21”
Then on December 8th, 2019 while flying a private jet from Los Angeles to Chicago Juice
was seen in the last known of video footage of him alive.
He looked happy and light hearted.
What we now know is that the FEDS had been watching the young rapper and his entourage
for over a month and were tipped off by their pilot about the possibility of guns on board
the plane.
What appears to have been an act to avoid charges for possession, Juice WRLD injected
as many as several unknown pills.
This ineviably resulted in a seizure and despite paramedics efforts to revive him he was pronounced
dead at 3:14 a.m.
At
Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, Illinois.
A bottle of codeine cough syrup was also found on the plane and 70 lbs of marijuanna stashed
away in suitcases.
The world woke up on Sunday morning to tragic the tragic news and famous friends and fans
took to social media to share their condolences.
We've made a video talking about a number of his closest friends reactions we released
yesterday.
Obviously there will be much more to this story in the coming days and weeks but I think
I'm going to wrap this one up here for Gone But Not Forgotten.
My name is Michael McCrudden, I'm a YouTube historian and we make biography type videos
on the daily.
Thanks for tuning in.
Please share your positive messages in the comments down below.
Bye.