Career & Discogrophy
2015–2017: Beginnings, record deal, and early projects Higgins began to develop as an artist in his first year of high school. His first track, "Forever", was released on SoundCloud in 2015 under the name JuicetheKidd. Higgins recorded most of his first tracks on a cellphone, uploading them to SoundCloud in his sophomore year. He changed his name from JuicetheKidd, a name inspired by his affection for rapper Tupac Shakur's role in the film Juice, to Juice Wrld because he and his associates believed the change would benefit his career. In an interview with the Atlanta radio station WHTA, Higgins revealed that the latter part of his stage name initially had no meaning but that he came to think it "represents taking over the world". "Too Much Cash", Higgins' first track to be produced by frequent collaborator Nick Mira, was released in 2017. While releasing projects and songs on SoundCloud, Higgins worked in a factory but was dissatisfied with the job; he was fired within two weeks. After joining the internet collective Internet Money, Higgins released his debut full-length EP, 9 9 9, on June 15, 2017, with the song "Lucid Dreams" breaking out and growing his following. In mid-2017, he began to receive attention from artists such as Waka Flocka Flame and Southside, as well as fellow Chicago artists G Herbo and Lil Bibby. He subsequently signed with Lil Bibby's co-owned record label, Grade A Productions. 2017–2018: Goodbye & Good Riddance and WRLD Domination Tour In December 2017, Higgins released the three-song EP Nothings Different. The project was covered by the hip-hop blog Lyrical Lemonade, with Higgins' track "All Girls Are the Same" gaining popularity through the blog post and an accompanying Cole Bennett-directed music video that was released in February 2018. Following the video's release, Interscope Records signed Higgins for $3 million and a remix featuring Lil Yachty was previewed but never officially released. "All Girls Are the Same" was critically acclaimed, receiving a Best New Music designation from Pitchfork. It was released as a single in April. "All Girls Are the Same" and "Lucid Dreams" were Higgins' first entries on any Billboard chart, debuting on the Hot 100 at numbers 92 and 74, respectively. On May 4, 2018, "Lucid Dreams" was officially released as a single and accompanied by a Cole Bennett-directed music video, similarly to "All Girls Are the Same". It peaked at number two on the Hot 100 and quickly became one of the most streamed songs of 2018; it remains his most-streamed song, reaching over one billion streams on Spotify by January 2020. "Lucid Dreams" was followed by "Lean Wit Me" on May 22, which peaked at number 68 on the Hot 100; Higgins' debut full-length album, Goodbye & Good Riddance, which included his three previous singles, released the following day. On June 19, he released a two-song EP titled Too Soon.. in remembrance of, and dedicated to, deceased rappers Lil Peep and XXXTentacion. Lil Peep died of an overdose in 2017 and XXXTentacion was shot and killed during an attempted robbery on June 18, 2018, one day before the project was released. Higgins said that he and XXXTentacion were friends and that they would have FaceTime calls together, revealing that their last conversation was about meeting up. The cover of the Too Soon.. EP is a screenshot of a conversation between Higgins and XXXTentacion. The song "Legends" from the EP debuted at number 65 on the Hot 100 and peaked at number 29 over a year later following Higgins' death. "Wasted" featuring Lil Uzi Vert was released on July 10; it was Higgins' first single featuring a collaboration and the only song on Goodbye & Good Riddance with a featured guest. It debuted at number 68 on the Hot 100 and peaked at 67 in its second week on the chart. On July 11, Higgins announced that he was working on his next album. On July 20, Higgins announced his first tour, WRLD Domination, with additional acts YBN Cordae and Lil Mosey. On July 25, Higgins' producer Danny Wolf released the official version of "Motions" on SoundCloud following a series of leaks. 2018–2019: Wrld on Drugs and Death Race for Love Travis Scott's song "No Bystanders", from his third studio album, Astroworld, featured Higgins and Sheck Wes. The song peaked at number 31 on the Billboard Hot 100. Higgins made his late night television debut performing the song "Lucid Dreams" on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on August 8, 2018. On October 15, the music video for the song "Armed and Dangerous" was released followed by the lead single, "Fine China", from the collaborative mixtape, Wrld on Drugs with Future. Epic Records released the mixtape on October 19. He collaborated with American singer Seezyn for the song "Hide" from the film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and its soundtrack, both of which were released on December 14, 2018. In a December 2018 interview with XXL, Ski Mask the Slump God confirmed that he would be releasing a joint mixtape with Higgins titled Evil Twins in 2019; as of 2021, the project has yet to be released. The pair also announced a 2019 tour featuring 30 concerts across North America. Higgins' second studio album, Death Race for Love, was released on March 8, 2019, preceded by the singles "Robbery" and "Hear Me Calling". The album topped the Billboard 200 chart. He then embarked on The Nicki Wrld Tour, alongside Trinidadian-American rapper Nicki Minaj. Higgins released the music video for the song "Fast" from Death Race for Love on April 9. Later that year, he released other singles: "All Night" with RM and Suga of BTS; "Hate Me" with Ellie Goulding; "Run"; "Graduation" with Benny Blanco; and "Bandit" with NBA YoungBoy, the last song to be released by Higgins' before his death. It peaked at number ten on the Hot 100. 2020–present: Posthumous releases Higgins' first posthumous appearance was on Eminem's eleventh studio album Music to Be Murdered By on the track "Godzilla", released on January 17, 2020. "Godzilla" peaked at number three on the Hot 100 and number one on the UK Singles Chart. On January 22, an announcement was posted on Higgins' Instagram account by members of his family and the team at Grade A Productions which thanked fans for their adoration for Higgins and confirmed their intention to release music that he was working on at the time of his death. Higgins was included on the title track of G Herbo's fourth studio album PTSD, released on February 28. The track features vocals by Lil Uzi Vert and Chance the Rapper. "PTSD" marked the first time that Higgins and Lil Uzi Vert had collaborated on a song since "Wasted". On March 13, a remix of the single "Suicidal", from YNW Melly's debut studio album Melly vs. Melvin, featuring vocals from Higgins, was released. The remix included a different verse and outro Higgins had recorded. The song reappeared on the Hot 100 and peaked at number 20 following the release of the remix. The single "No Me Ame", a multilingual collaboration among Higgins, Jamaican record producer Rvssian and Puerto Rican rapper Anuel AA, was released on April 17. A computer-generated image depicting Higgins as an angel appears in the background of the song's music video. Higgins' first posthumous single, "Righteous", was released on April 24 and an accompanying music video featuring footage of Higgins was uploaded to his YouTube channel. Higgins had recorded the song at his home studio in Los Angeles. On May 4, Higgins' girlfriend, Ally Lotti, announced that his upcoming third album and first posthumous album would be titled The Outsiders. On May 29, the song "Tell Me U Luv Me" featuring Trippie Redd was released alongside a music video directed by Cole Bennett. "Go", Higgins' collaboration with Australian rapper the Kid Laroi (whom Higgins mentored), was released on June 12. On July 6, it was announced that the title of Higgins' first posthumous album had been changed to Legends Never Die. Between the album's announcement and its release, two single collaborations were released; "Life's a Mess" featuring Halsey and "Come & Go" featuring Marshmello. The album was released on July 10, with 21 songs and four singles that Higgins' estate claims "best represents the music Juice was in the process of creating". The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200. Five of its songs reached the top 10 of the Hot 100 on the week ending July 25: "Come & Go", "Wishing Well", "Conversations", "Life's a Mess", and "Hate the Other Side" (a collaboration with Polo G and The Kid Laroi), which reached number two, five, seven, nine, and ten, respectively. Higgins is the third artist to accomplish this feat; the other artists being the Beatles and Drake. "Life's a Mess" jumped from number 74 to number nine that week. "Wishing Well", which had been critically lauded following the album's release, was sent to rhythmic contemporary radio as the album's fifth single on July 28. On August 6, "Smile" with the Weeknd was released as a single. "Smile" had previously been leaked on YouTube and SoundCloud under the title "Sad" over a year before, though with an open verse in place of the Weeknd's. On October 23, Lil Bibby confirmed that a second posthumous album was in the works. On December 2, which would have been Higgins' twenty-second birthday, Benny Blanco released a collaborative single titled "Real ****". Six days later, on December 8, the anniversary of his death, "Reminds Me of You" featuring the Kid Laroi was released. In 2020, Higgins was streamed on Spotify over 5.9 billion times, making him the fourth most streamed artist in the world. On January 15, 2021, Higgins' estate released "Bad Boy" featuring Young Thug, which was accompanied by a Cole Bennett-directed music video shot entirely before Higgins' death; this marks the final collaboration between the artist and director before the former's passing. On March 5, "Life's a Mess II", an alternative version of the track "Life's a Mess" from Legends Never Die, featuring Clever and Post Malone was released. On May 28, Higgins' debut full-length album Goodbye & Good Riddance was re-released to commemorate its third anniversary; the re-release includes two new songs, one titled "734" and the other being a remix of "Lucid Dreams" featuring Lil Uzi Vert. The 2018 single "Armed and Dangerous", which was included on the December 2018 Spotify and Tidal reissue of the album, is excluded from the revised tracklist. Following the re-release of Goodbye & Good Riddance, another posthumous project titled The Party Never Ends was teased by Higgins' management. On June 11, two tracks featuring Higgins were released; "Antisocial" from Migos' album Culture III, and "Can't Leave You Alone" from Maroon 5's Jordi. On August 20, "Matt Hardy 999", a song featuring Higgins from Trippie Redd's album Trip at Knight, was released. Higgins was also featured on Young Thug's album Punk, which released on October 15. On November 11, Higgins' estate announced that his second posthumous album, Fighting Demons, a soundtrack to the documentary Juice Wrld: Into the Abyss would be released on December 10. The album's first single, "Already Dead", was released the following day. Discogrophy
Goodbye & Good Riddance (2018)
Future & Juice WRLD Present...
The Party Never Ends (2022)* * = Not Yet Released |
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