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abril 04, 2022 Postar um comentário

Why Is Juice WRLD So Popular?

Juice WRLD is arguably one of hip-hop's modern 24-hour interval pioneers. With a career that has been null short of meteoric, he currently stands as one of the most listened to rappers in the game and finds himself nominated for "Best New Artist" at the 2019 BET Awards. Poised to have home the same honor that has been awarded to the likes of Kendrick Lamar and Kanye West, we revisit our 2018 piece that posed the question on all of our minds–why is Juice WRLD and then pop?

Juice WRLD, born Jarad Higgins, released his debut album Good day & Practiced Riddance in May of 2018, and in less than 2 months since its release, he is the 50th most-listened-to creative person in the world. Fusing together elements of distorted hip-hop and late-stage emo, Juice WRLD is beingness championed every bit the tiptop of the adjacent generation of hip-hop. But why, exactly?

The Illinois-based rapper first constitute his kickoff in late high-schoolhouse, releasing music under the name of JuicetheKidd to SoundCloud. A plumbing fixtures beginning for an creative person who is often talked about under the umbrella of "SoundCloud" rap, notwithstanding whose meteoric ascent to fame has shattered any associated preconceptions of the umbrella genre term. A large part of Juice WRLD's early on success can be accredited to Cole Bennet who is the visionary multimedia director behind the Lyrical Lemonade YouTube channel. The innovative director has been touted as shaping the expect of 2017 rap and beyond, often being the go-to-person for nearly every Soundcloud rapper's music video. From Lil Xan, Lil Skies, Lil Pump, to Juice WRLD, Bennet has become a guidepost to what is bound to break in today's rap landscape.

Bennet is responsible for Juice WRLD's music videos for both "All Girls Are the Same" and "Lucid Dreams," but that does not answer the question of why the Chicago rapper is then popular. Afterward all, at that place a number of artists who accept been featured numerous times on Lyrical Lemonade merely have non seen even a fraction of the success as Higgins. Yet, Lyrical Lemonade and the artists it champions is an fantabulous place to start to find the answer to our question. The near popular video to date on Bennet's channel is the music video for Lil Xan'south "Betrayed." A similar lo-fi distorted hip-hop production with emotive vocals but with one major caveat–its fixation on the prescription drug Xanax.

Two things that this new generation of upwardly-and-coming Net-bred rappers have been defined by is their reliance on prescription drugs as focal points in their music and non really having much at all to say. Both widely-held assertations are misplaced. The latter is an argument that is thrown effectually with every novel step in music and has more to do with the psychology of how people accept or deny new and foreign information. Withal, the former assertion is one that is harder to milk shake. Prescription drugs, particularly the anti-feet drug Xanax, has become a sort of cultural identity to SoundCloud rap. Drugs, illicit or otherwise, are nothing new to rap, or other genres for that affair. For instance, the erstwhile generation or rappers spoke heavily of lean, while '90s rap saw notable references to cleft and cocaine.

Nonetheless, the prevalence of Xanax in such a subgenre nevertheless feels alarming. And information technology should. It is a office of what makes Juice WRLD and the whole of SoundCloud rap such a popular phenomenon. In that location are many ways in which this generation approaches the conversation of prescription drug corruption, whether it exist celebratory, down-hearted credence, or consummate disavowal, such every bit in Lil Xan's aforementioned "Betrayed." No affair the approach, there is one constant underlying theme of escape.

Music, well music of annotation, speaks to larger societal issues and undercurrents, intentionally or not. SoundCloud rap is no different. This generation's vocal acknowledgment of Xanax and other mood-altering drugs and their forthcoming nature on the matter speaks to these deeper societal bug. It is more than than a mere imitation of a tendency. Wherein past generations of hip-hop exuded a certain sense of machismo, this generation of rappers reflect their surrounding cultural norms. Outside of the realm of emo, which was an obvious autograph for emotional music, it was relatively unheard of for artists to speak then openly on issues related to depression, feet, and heartbreak in the way they do now. But as nosotros live in a lodge where it becomes more accepted by the day for men to express their emotional vulnerability openly, those ideas are thusly reflected in the music people create.

So, every bit the song stylings of late-stage emo establish a new home behind the blown-out production of bedroom-produced hip-hop, the emotional vulnerability came with it. And while prescription drugs may at get-go appear as a focal betoken for most of today'south SoundCloud rap hitmakers, it'due south more and then employed as a vehicle for the actual bulletin. One of the artists who is mayhap most effective at this is of course, Juice WRLD, which is largely thanks to his unconventional songwriting style.

Every verse Juice WRLD writes is largely freestyled, opting for a stream-of-consciousness arroyo that draws from his own immediate surroundings and those of his friends. When he speaks of heartbreak and only wanting to escape it using drugs on "Candles," or the difficulty of accepting an overdose-related death of a cohort in "Legends," information technology's the authentic recounting of him and his friend's personal experiences. The personable and often harsh recountings that are typically avoided past other mainstream media outlets take clearly struck a chord with youths who are in many ways seeing the world of SoundCloud rap equally a reflection of their own realities.

So, when asked why Juice WRLD is so popular, I believe a friend's off-paw annotate when asked the same, succinctly sums information technology upward all-time, "Information technology's sad boy music but it's too relatable as hell."