At 21, Juice WRLD had begun to master the world around him. He could wed the sounds of influences like Billy Idol and Chief Keef and create something entirely different. As a songwriter, he could pair an airy melody with lyrics about heartbreak or drugs, and given the chance, fire off marathon freestyle sessions on a whim. A wunderkind with many imitators on SoundCloud, he sounded far more polished, far beyond whatever his closest peer was attempting to accomplish. When he died in December 2019, days removed from celebrating his 21st birthday, it opened up yet another wound for a generation of rap fans struggling to hold on to the new voices that spoke for them.
Juice WRLD brought people from outside the margins into his crystalized world of vulnerability in a dash towards mental freedom. His most fervently repeated lines doubled as yearbook quotes or quickly deleted tweets. His closest supporters, such as producer and longtime collaborator Nick Mira, have kept his legacy close to them, maybe more so than any other group of fans who recently lost their champion. Juice asked those fans to trust him—and the people who supported him—as if they were family. Legends Never Die, the Chicago artist’s first posthumous release, doesn’t feel like a final goodbye from Juice but instead a continued look inside his world.
Across three major releases—Goodbye & Good Riddance, WRLD on Drugs, and Death Race for Love—Juice proudly kept himself at a distance while pining for love, bringing fans closer to his truth while still keeping his guard up. The bulk of Legends Never Die sifts through his thoughts as he battled anxiety in the face of stardom. He understood the game he played and how it kept him centered: “If it wasn’t for the pills, I wouldn’t be here,” he sings on “Wishing Well.” It’s a bleak and beautiful world he’s created, one where the most poignant moments are buried in candor and honesty.
Throughout Legends Never Die’s 56 minutes, Juice’s delivery is conversational and evocative as he checks off the perks of success and the lingering doubts (“Just got a new house, gotta hide the skeletons in the closet”). The emo-heavy sounds that blossomed on Death Race’s “Robbery” and “Empty” have now morphed into a fully developed ecosystem where all of the sounds and keys are built around Juice’s frame of mind. Mira’s touches on Legends Never Die don’t appear until the harrowing “Righteous,” where sparse guitar plays underneath Juice’s confessional: “Taking medicine to fix all of the damage/My anxiety the size of a planet,” he sings. Pop heavyweights such Dr. Luke and Marshmello grab the mantle on “Wishing Well” and the pop-rock ready anthem “Come & Go,” where Juice thanks God for allowing him grace and support.
Juice writes a great hook like no other, but it’s a fine line between being catchy and being repetitive. The themes of despair and downing pills to mask problems carry over to many songs and make for an uneasy listen that doesn’t really reveal more about him in the process. As high as Juice was in creating watershed moments, his self-awareness about those highs eventually betraying him became evident. Even when he shifts into a tough sneer, he steps into knotty one-liners about gunplay (“Let my gun bust a nut”) that fall flat.
There are moments when Juice’s peers take the wheel to eulogize him. “The Man, The Myth, The Legend” captures anecdotes and unpretentious thoughts on his life from the likes of G Herbo and others. Stories about Juice’s freestyle skills and triumphs are peppered with colossal heapings of praise and zero mention of what ultimately robbed his life. Even without that added dimension, it’s the intent that’s paramount. Herbo and company—like many who struggle with how best to remember family when they pass—choose to be protective and highlight Juice’s greater deeds and accomplishments, rather than to relive a tragic final act.
The gripping parts of Legends Never Die come when Juice is speaking from the heart. With a casual flex in his voice, he points out his guiding ethos: Regardless of how destructive his path was, he sought to save those who listened to him. He found those same sentiments in peers like Lil Peep and XXXTentacion, both of whom captured raw material from the id to establish cult-like fanbases and died just months apart. (In 2018, Juice released “Legends,” a tribute song to both men, singing, “What’s the 27 Club?/We ain’t making it past 21.”) Legends Never Die becomes another way for Juice WRLD to keep saving people from their demons. He wanted to help fans who were also enduring his pain—he never wanted to be alone in the process.
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