The entire music community was shaken on December 8th, 2019 when the news broke that rising star rapper/singer Juice WRLD had died of an accidental drug overdose in Chicago exactly one week after his 21st birthday. During his brief career, he developed a large, passionate fanbase with his introspective lyrics and earned the respect of his peers with his technical skills. In late January, a report from XXL revealed that he had at least 2,000 unreleased songs in the reserves and that his label was planning on assembling a new record featuring some of that material for a future release. Just over seven months after his death, his first posthumous release, Legends Never Die, has dropped and ends up serving as a nice tribute to his unique artistry.
The openness about his struggles with addiction makes Legends Never Die hard to process initially. No matter how hard you hard to try and focus on the entire musical package that it presents, there's just something eerie and surreal about hearing someone essentially prophesize their own death shortly after it actually happened. Lead single "Righteous" feels like he's writing his own obituary with its somber, subdued atmosphere while other tracks like "Wishing Well", "Fighting Demons" and "Up Up and Away" openly discuss how he used substances (Percocet/Xanax/codeine) to numb the pain caused by his anxiety/depression even though he was aware there could be potentially fatal consequences. While these tracks have a clear, emotional power to them, it remains really difficult to digest listening to someone speak about their demons after they died because of them. He knew as well as anyone that self-awareness is a blessing and a curse, and it's awful that the fears he had about his lifestyle choice putting him at risk to die young came true.
After moving past the strange feelings that get conjured up in the moments that deal with Juice's addiction, how good of a job Legends Never Die does of coherently putting together a product that honors Juice's vision comes into the focus. Unsurprisingly, Juice's camp wanted the vibe of Legends Never Die to be predominantly celebratory and his versatility allowed them to pull that off. Sad, emo rap tracks might be what he's best known for, but he was equally comfortable dropping noisy trap bangers ("Conversations", "Titanic"), poppy radio jams (the Halsey-aided "Life's a Mess", "Bad Energy") or even pop punk ("Man of the Year", "Come & Go"). Experimenting wasn't some kind of pandering gimmick for him, he had a wide range of influences that he wanted to honor on every record, and his gift for writing catchy melodies/hooks and adjusting his voice to fit whatever style he was utilizing on a given track allowed him to successfully acclimate to a solid number of different styles. Being able to successfully work within so many genres is a special skill that sits at the core of what made Juice WRLD the most buzzed-about young rapper to emerge in the last few years.
Considering the fact this could've easily just been some hastily-assembled collection of loosies designed to cash in on his untimely death, getting a posthumous release that demonstrates a good amount of what he could do musically while maintaining a natural flow is a pretty big victory. While there's enough forgettable whiffs here ("Hate the Other Side", "Blood on My Jeans", "Stay High") to show that he hadn't reached his full potential quite yet, this record demonstrates that he was on the right trajectory to do so and it's sad that we're never going to be able see where the full maturation of his gifts could've taken him. Given the aforementioned extensive library of tracks and subsequent commercial success of Legends Never Die, there's little doubt that more posthumous Juice WRLD record will be coming down the line. Let's hope that any follow-up release does as good of a job of honoring his life and talent as this does.
The openness about his struggles with addiction makes Legends Never Die hard to process initially. No matter how hard you hard to try and focus on the entire musical package that it presents, there's just something eerie and surreal about hearing someone essentially prophesize their own death shortly after it actually happened. Lead single "Righteous" feels like he's writing his own obituary with its somber, subdued atmosphere while other tracks like "Wishing Well", "Fighting Demons" and "Up Up and Away" openly discuss how he used substances (Percocet/Xanax/codeine) to numb the pain caused by his anxiety/depression even though he was aware there could be potentially fatal consequences. While these tracks have a clear, emotional power to them, it remains really difficult to digest listening to someone speak about their demons after they died because of them. He knew as well as anyone that self-awareness is a blessing and a curse, and it's awful that the fears he had about his lifestyle choice putting him at risk to die young came true.
After moving past the strange feelings that get conjured up in the moments that deal with Juice's addiction, how good of a job Legends Never Die does of coherently putting together a product that honors Juice's vision comes into the focus. Unsurprisingly, Juice's camp wanted the vibe of Legends Never Die to be predominantly celebratory and his versatility allowed them to pull that off. Sad, emo rap tracks might be what he's best known for, but he was equally comfortable dropping noisy trap bangers ("Conversations", "Titanic"), poppy radio jams (the Halsey-aided "Life's a Mess", "Bad Energy") or even pop punk ("Man of the Year", "Come & Go"). Experimenting wasn't some kind of pandering gimmick for him, he had a wide range of influences that he wanted to honor on every record, and his gift for writing catchy melodies/hooks and adjusting his voice to fit whatever style he was utilizing on a given track allowed him to successfully acclimate to a solid number of different styles. Being able to successfully work within so many genres is a special skill that sits at the core of what made Juice WRLD the most buzzed-about young rapper to emerge in the last few years.
Considering the fact this could've easily just been some hastily-assembled collection of loosies designed to cash in on his untimely death, getting a posthumous release that demonstrates a good amount of what he could do musically while maintaining a natural flow is a pretty big victory. While there's enough forgettable whiffs here ("Hate the Other Side", "Blood on My Jeans", "Stay High") to show that he hadn't reached his full potential quite yet, this record demonstrates that he was on the right trajectory to do so and it's sad that we're never going to be able see where the full maturation of his gifts could've taken him. Given the aforementioned extensive library of tracks and subsequent commercial success of Legends Never Die, there's little doubt that more posthumous Juice WRLD record will be coming down the line. Let's hope that any follow-up release does as good of a job of honoring his life and talent as this does.
Grade: B
Standout Tracks:
1.Righteous
2.Conversations
3.Screw Juice
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