JUICE WRLD has died aged 21

Juice WRLD has passed away at only 21-years-old. He joins an ever-growing list of contemporaries who’ve lost their lives far too young. Why is this happening?

I’m sure by now you’ve probably seen the headlines.

Prolific trap and emo rapper Juice WRLD died yesterday at Chicago’s Midway International Airport due to a sudden seizure. The cause is currently unknown, but it’s not a stretch to guess that it was likely a result of heavy substance abuse, a topic that he was always open about both on record and in interviews.

Juice isn’t the first young artist to fall victim to a drug-laced lifestyle. In the last few years the industry has seen one iconic face after another pass away before they reach their thirties. Mac Miller, Lil Peep, and XXXTentacion are perhaps the biggest names that come to mind; all artists who had yet to reach their creative peaks.

These early deaths go hand in hand with hip-hop’s recent transformation from bling, machismo boasting to pop-infused vulnerability. Emo trap and pop-rap both embrace depression, anxiety, and substance abuse – a lifestyle that can be dangerous and fatal. It’s a difficult dilemma. On the one hand, Gen Z’s more honest and heartfelt approach to hip-hop should be championed but, equally, it runs the risk of normalising coping methods such as lean dependency and addiction.

There is clearly a problem here, but how can we stop more rappers dying young in the future?

Does trap encourage substance abuse?

Not all trap music glamorises substance abuse, obviously. There are plenty of artists who use contemporary sounds in sunny, fun ways, such as KYLE, Lil Yachty, and D.R.A.M, but there is undeniably a subgenre that perpetuates a drug dependent lifestyle. Particularly popular is the purple drink ‘lean’, a combination of cough syrup, fizzy drinks, and hard sweets – which can be very dangerous to drink.

Lil Peep was completely open and transparent about drugs, using them to cope with depression and bipolar disorder. He died from a combination of fentanyl and Xanax and frequently referenced them in his music. This kind of substance abuse is not an abnormality in emo trap, a genre that has increasingly moved into the mainstream as the years have gone on. Juice WRLD referenced lean and pills just as much as Lil Peep – here he is only two months ago in the music video for his recent song ‘Bandit’.