Growing up in the Chicago suburbs, Jarad Higgins would freestyle rap through his school hallways. As a teenager, he began recording as Juice WRLD (a nod to the 1992 film starring 2Pac) and set his eyes on stardom. “My biggest fear is not getting to the point I want to,” he told Apple Music in the documentary accompanying his 2018 Up Next campaign, “but that’s also my biggest strength.” His distinctive, genre-blending take on emo rap—Auto-Tuned vocals, hints of pop punk, and beats inspired by Chief Keef and Chicago drill—shines on the breakthrough singles “Lucid Dreams” and “All Girls Are the Same,” which plumbed grief and regret and heartbreak with alarming honesty. Just five months after his star-making debut project, Goodbye & Good Riddance, he released a full-length collaboration with Future that felt like a euphoric, decadent victory lap. His second full-length solo project, Death Race for Love, released in March 2019, continued to mine personal pain for maximum drama, while collaborations with BTS and Ellie Goulding exhibited his range. Juice WRLD passed away in Chicago in December 2019 at age 21.