Rapper Juice WRLD Has Died Shortly After Finishing His Australian Tour

R.I.P.

Rising 21-year-old emo rapper Juice WRLD has sadly died after landing at Chicago’s Midway airport on Sunday morning.

TMZ reported that the musician, whose legal name was Jarad Anthony Higgins, suffered a seizure while walking through the airport, and began to bleed from the mouth when paramedics arrived. He was pronounced dead at the hospital shortly after.

At this stage, the cause of death is not clear, and the autopsy is yet to be completed. 

Just over a week ago, Juice WLRD had been in Australia for Spilt Milk Festival. He’d also performed shows to sold-out crowds in Perth, Sydney, and Melbourne, as part of his headline tour.

Fellow musicians have paid tribute to the young rapper on Twitter.

A life cut too short. 

In a short space of time, Juice WRLD significantly impacted the music industry worldwide. Born in Chicago, he started rapping and uploading tracks to Soundcloud in 2015, while he was still in high school. 

With a sound that combined emo and trap, the rapper broke onto the scene with "All Girls are the Same", and signed with Interscope for a reported $US3 million in 2018. His debut album Goodbye & Good Riddance was a platinum success. 

However, it was the melancholic "Lucid Dreams" that catapulted Juice WRLD into stardom. As of writing this article, the song has been streamed 980 million times, and that number is expected to reach one billion by the end of the week.

Juice WRLD's album, Death Race for Love topped the U.S. album charts, and placed 40th on Rolling Stone's Best Albums of 2019 list. Triple J also featured it back in May this year, calling it "so much more than just emo rap." 

At the end of 2018, he was named Billboard's top new R&B/hip-hop artist, and earlier this year, he was crowned top new artist at the 2019 Billboard Music Awards. 

The singer, who had always been exceptionally open about his struggles with depression, collaborated with a range of artists including Ellie Goulding. A couple of months ago, he teamed up with NBA Youngboy for "Bandit".

Juice WRLD is being remembered as a kind, spirited, and incredibly talented person. 

Interscope Geffen A&M Records said in a statement, "Juice made a profound impact on the world in such a short period of time. He was a gentle soul, whose creativity knew no bounds, an exceptional human being and artist who loved and cared for his fans above everything else. To lose someone so kind and so close to our hearts is devastating. Our thoughts are with Juice's family and friends, everyone at his label Grade A, and his millions of fans around the world."

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Header Image: YouTube (Lyrical Lemonade).