Latest / DISGRACELAND / Juice WRLD: Percocets, Lucid Dreams and a Whole Lotta Lean

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Juice WRLD: Percocets, Lucid Dreams and a Whole Lotta Lean · DISGRACELAND

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Juice World are insane. He started popping prescription pills and
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: experimenting with lean, a toxic combination of cough syrup, soda,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: and candy, in the sixth grade. His career caught the
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: eye of the FBI when he was just twenty years old.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: His passing is one of the most sudden, tragic, and
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: graphic celebrity deaths in recent memory. And when Juice World died,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: he left a vault of two thousand songs behind, each
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: a new entry in the then burgeoning genre of emo wrap.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: His music helped hit the reset button on popular music,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: transforming a once bubbly genre into an all consuming wormhole
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: of depression, tension, and heartache. But even when it was melancholy,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Juice World made great music. Unlike that loop I played
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: for you at the top of the show. That wasn't
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: great music. That was a preset loop from my melotron
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: called Reggae All Day MK One. I played you that
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: loop because I can't afford the rights to nice for
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: what by Drake? And why would I play you that
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: specific slice of snapin fabo cheese? Could I afford it
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: because that was the number one song in America on
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: May fourth, twenty eighteen, and that was the day the
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Juice World re released his moody magnum Opus Lucid Dreams,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: establishing himself as gen Z's new spokesperson, a spokesperson whose
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: star power would burn bright but ultimately be snuffed out
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: far too soon. On this episode, a whole lot of
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: lean prescription pills ever watching Eyes of the FBI and
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: the tragic death of Juice World. I'm Jake Brennan, and
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: this this disgraceland. The airfield at the Chicago Midway National
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Airport was quiet on the morning of December eighth, twenty nineteen.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Winter winds howled, red eye flights coasted in past midnight
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: descended in the frigid December air. The stillness made it
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: easy for the Feds to spot Juice World's jet when
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: it arrived. Alongside members of the Chicago Police Force. Federal
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: agents were biding their time at the gate. The rapper
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: born Jared Anthony Higgins would be there with his entourage
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: any minute, now, returning to Illinois for a belated twenty
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: first birthday celebration in his home city. Keyword celebration. He
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: was here to party, and certainly he had brought some
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: party with him from Los Angeles. That's what the FEDS
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: were hoping.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: At least.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Passed brushes with Juice World at various airports had raised
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: serious suspicions about the young rapper, and they expected him
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: to be transporting the legal drugs. That morning, Canine shifted
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: around eagerly as authorities watched Juice World's private jet pull
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: up to the gate. Before Juice World and his entourage
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: could even deplane, a cop and his furry best friend
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: were scouring the cabin. Almost immediately, the canine gave the affirmative,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: and that was all the thought already needed to start
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: ripping open suitcases. As Juice World and his crew stepped
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: onto the terminal, the Feds lasered in on the baggage cart.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: They tore bags from it, unzipped pockets, dumped out compartments,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: rifled through wardrobes. It didn't take long before they found
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: what they were looking for. Forty one vacuum sealed bags
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: of marijuana, seventy pounds total. But there was more. Six
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: bottles of prescription strength cody and cough syrup, a forty
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: caliber pistol two nine millimeters, plus a high capacity ammunition
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: magazine and metal piercing bullets to boot jackpot. Mccops poured
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: over their wealth of contraband. The late night's takeout had
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: been a success. But while the police were busy tallying
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: the contraband, something far more urgent was going down that
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: would demand their immediate attention. Call an ambulance, I said,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: Call a fucking ambulance. Juice World's girlfriend was an hysteric
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: in a nearby hallway at the terminal. Juice World convulsed
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: on the cold tile floor. His body had started to
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: seize minutes earlier and wasn't showing any signs of stopping.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: His arms jerked one way, legs jerked another. The whites
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: of his eyes went belly up. His blonde tipped dreads
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: bounced around as his head lulled to and fro with
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: each jagged movement. Blood oozed from between his lips, and
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: no matter how much his girlfriend screamed and shook his
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: limp body, Juice World wasn't responding. Someone claimed a stretcher
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: was on the way. Supposedly some narcan too, but the
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: light in Juice World's universe had already started to fade.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: It looked like candy, smelled like candy. He was literally
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: made with candy, So why did the cup of lean
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: in his hand repulse? Juice World aka Jared Perhaps twelve
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: year old palate wasn't refined enough yet. He lifted the
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: glass to his face and took another whiff. He knew
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: he had to drink it. This has been his idea,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: after all. One of his schoolmates egged him on as
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: they crouched behind a fly covered dumpster in their school's
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: parking lot. Enough already drink it. But you never been
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: sick before. Sicker than all you motherfuckers, Jared said, before
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: downing the cup In one swig. He felt the drink
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: slog down his throat, and then he wiped the remaining
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: purple goo from his lips. It tasted, as advertised, just
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: like what you'd expect from a tangy mixture of prescription
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: coughs here of soda and hard candy. Like Robotustin fucked
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: a jolly rancher. Jared set the cup down wordlessly, chest
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: puffed out with preteen of cheesemo is it to say there?
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: As his friends poured out more of the purple potion
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: to share amongst themselves. Jared rested his back against the
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: rusty dumpster, waiting, anticipating his body to go slack at
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: any moment, just like the songs described, or at least
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: that's how he remembered them. Every rap song Jared heard
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: he had to commit to memory because hip hop wasn't
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: hip in the Higgins household. In fact, it was flat
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: out band. Classic rock was cool and gospel absolutely, but
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: his single, strict Christian mother didn't tolerate the vulgar language
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: he heard in rap, all those swears and references condoning
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: bad behavior, bad behavior like drinking lean. Everything Jared learned
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: about the world of hip hop he had to learn
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: away from home. His cousins were his main teachers, stealing
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: him away to sneak in secret listening sessions. Meek Mill, Cameron,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Lil Wayne, Cassidy, Geezy, Gucci May, Chief, Keith. These rappers
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: were all part of juice world's hush hush education. When
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: his cousin's hip play, Jared would hang on every bar,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: study their flow, memorize as much as he could to
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: keep it fresh for later. Back at home, He'd rapped
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: to himself, mumbling under his breath, But when he couldn't
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: remember the lyrics, he'd fill in his own on the spot,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: and half the time they were better than the real verse. Anyways.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: His most recent discovery was a rapper named Future Future
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: rapped the lot about lean a lot. He rapped about
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: popping percocets too. That's what inspired Jared to seek it
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: out that afternoon after school in the sixth grade. You
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: guys like future, he asked, still awaiting the high. You
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: mean odd Future the group. One friend answered, what, no
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: future Man, but the suggestion moved into Google Odd Future too.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: He found a level of talent and darkness he hadn't
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: been prepared for. In the quirky up and coming rap
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: collective from Los Angeles, their morbid mottos spelled out their
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: attitude Odd Future Wolfgang kill them all. That shit was
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: downright eerie. A rapper named Tyler the Creator, seemed to
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: be one of the ringleaders of the group. A menace
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: of an MC. He wrapped about slitting his wrists, made
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: skits out of harassing a therapist called himself Satan's Son.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: He harnessed the dreadful depths of depression. Unlike anyone Jared
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: had ever heard before. Tyler the Creator did it better
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: than even the Emo. Jared like to bless the fall.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: Blackveil Brides escaped the faith. They pierced, but they couldn't
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: touch Tyler. Tyler spoke to Juice World on an otherworldly level,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: On an underworldly level, his adolescent Angst had a home
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: in odd future. But there was something more than angst
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: slinking around under Juice World's skin, a restlessness coursing through
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: his veins at all hours. He didn't have a name
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: for the feeling. Was this anxiety Juice World than Jared
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: just twelve years old, He didn't have that kind of
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: mental health vocabulary yet. His body was calling out for something,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: but he couldn't tell what cigarettes, maybe lean Maybe What
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: he did know is it sure as hell wasn't calling
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: for the add medication his doctor insisted on prescribing him.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: That was a drug he had no interest in. Every morning,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: his routine was the same. He arrived at school at
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: the ass crack of dawn, dropped off hours early by
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: his mother, who then endured a grueling drive to her
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: job in Indiana. Across state lines. He'd make his way
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: to the desolate cafeteria opened his lunch box, slurp down
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: his cereal, find his add medication carefully folded, and napkin it,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: Swallow it, bask in fifteen minutes of social euphoria, and
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: then nothing. Brain dead Gray a zombie for the rest
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: of the day, irritable, unable to eat, totally vacant. And
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: this was supposed to help him with school. Jared may
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: have been, but he already saw the prescribed drugs for
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: what they were bullshit. Didn't doctors know a board kid
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: when they saw one. He didn't need to be on
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: add medication. He needed the space to pursue what interested him,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: to pursue music, specifically to pursue rapping, the very thing
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: he couldn't do at home. So he changed his routine.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: He still started every morning with his breakfast at school,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: but when it came time to take the pill, carefully
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: tucked into his lunchbox, he tossed it in with his
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: pile of trash, next to his orange peel an empty
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: carton of milk. It wasn't helping him with school. Besides,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: if he needed to medicate himself, he had his own
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: means now he could rap about it just as well
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: as anyone else. And he didn't need a pill to
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: focus on that juice world. Squinted as he held the
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: bright orange pill up to the sunlight gleaming in through
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: the tour bus window. Colors almost matched, he mused to
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: himself as he toyed with the tablet in his fingers,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: running his thumb over the raised Tesla logo on the
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: small pill. He didn't even remember who had given it
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: to him. At this point, he just knew he had
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: been saving this particular trip for a special occasion, and today,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: on the fteenth stop of his North American tour, it
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: felt like the right time for a little boost, or
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: rather a big boost. Tesla pills contained enough ecstasy for
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: four people, enough ecstasy to ride a unicorn and taste
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: the rain. He had plucked the pill from his collection
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: of percocets, which was now a daily ritual for him,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: washed down with however much lean it took to cleanse
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: himself from the anxiety of the day, but today called
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: for something extra special. As he stood up to pour
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: himself a glass of water in the sad, cramped excuse
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: of a bathroom, the tor bus's front wheel dipped into
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: a cavernous pothole. The cabin rattled, and Juice World lost
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: his footing and fumbled with the pill. Before the pill
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: leapt from his hands and across the bus. He watched
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: it slide under a nearby seat. Juice World lunged, but
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: he wasn't quick enough. His girlfriend, Alexia had fished it
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: off the floor before he could. She held it between
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: her neatly manicured fingers like a piece of trash. Her
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: brows furrowed into a threatening v as she flicked the
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: pill back at him. She asked him if he wanted
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: to turn up just like little pe dead, oh deed young.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: The exchange over the pill made Juice World's thoughts hang
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: on a little peep who was indeed found unconscious on
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: his tour bus barely a year earlier, and yes, another
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: accidental overdose dead at twenty one. Juice World couldn't even
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: believe that was something he had to worry about now.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Couldn't believe that a crummy SoundCloud account had landed him here,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: halfway between home and the West Coast at nineteen years old,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: with a label like inner Scope footing the bill. That
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: this wasn't some kind of lucid dream, This was all
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: very real. It started with just a couple clicks back
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: in twenty fifteen Juice World. Then Jared, at age sixteen
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: years old, did what any other broke team musician did.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: He didn't mail a mixtape to a record label. He
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: didn't download a list of A and our folks and
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: start sending pleading form emails either. Instead, he did the
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: twenty tens thing. He downloaded some free beats from YouTube
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: and created a SoundCloud account his bleeding Heart bars, and
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: they did the rest. He called himself Juice the Kid,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: an homage to Tupac and the nineteen ninety two crime
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: thriller Juice. They shared that same juice box fade haircut.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: But that was about all Jared shared with the nineties
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: hip hop kon. His style was on another level entirely.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: The pulse of drill music was fresh in his mind.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: That heavy, nihilistic sound simmering on the streets of Chicago
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: had been front and center in his city since twenty ten,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: championed by rappers like Little Bibbi, Chief Keef, and Little Dirk.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Their verses were blunt, straightforward, like a slap in the face,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: hard enough to knock the lean right off your lips.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Its harsh quality reminded him of odd future. It reminded
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: him of emo too, so Jared, with no game plan
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: in mind, subconsciously fused both genres. His music evoked mood swings.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: He draped his melancholy over samples of Sting and Yellow Card,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: and when he rapped his voice wilted a jarring contrast
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: to his bass heavy beats. But above all, Jared was
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: just honest. He was one struggling young adult speaking to
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: a generation with the same soul, sucking, screen addictions and
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: mental health afflictions, crushed under the weight of their parents'
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: political and personal debts. The tides of popular music were shifting.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: The days of sugary songs about spilling drinks in the
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: club were circling the drain. The escape of vapid pop
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: had vanished. Gen Z's reality had crushed it. Climate change
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: was closing in summers were a bummer. Nothing filled the void. Instead,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: music contributed to the void. The unifying theme behind popular
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: music was that it ate, It bled called out from
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: a place of isolation, hurt music for hurt people, and
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: Jared was leading the trend from behind a SoundCloud account.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: And for a while things were quiet. Then seemingly overnight,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: things would never be quiet again for Jared. By twenty seventeen,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Chicago had taken notice of its new Woebegone Wonderkin, specifically,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Little Bibby and his artistic partner G Money had taken notice.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Jared's song Lucid Dreams, uploaded in June of twenty seventeen,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: had caught the attention of the rapper producer pair, who
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: were currently toying with the idea of starting a joint
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: record label in their shared hometown of Chicago. They would
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: call the label Grade A Productions, and Jared would be
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: one of the first artists on the roster. When they
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: heard the technicolor tear jerker that was Lucidas, it was
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: obvious their star client was already sulking around on their
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: home turf, Bibi and g Money started making calls. Jared's
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: world grew louder. They hooked him up with videographer and
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: director Cole Bennett, who worked behind the lens for his
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: music video All Girls Are the Same, and that set
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: the bait. Then Grade A Productions called up Deaf Jam
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Interscope got hit two, and a bidding war broke out.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: Convenient Jared now using the moniker full on Juice World
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: to match his Twitter handle, watched it all unfold faster
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: than one of his freestyles. His hype grew to a
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: deafening din In March of twenty eighteen, Interscope claimed victory
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: in Juice World, joined the ranks of Kendrick Lamar, Doctor Dre,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: Schoolboy Q, the Rolling Fucking Stones, and even the artists
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: whose plaintive plucking gave Juice World the harmonic basis for
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: lucid Dreams Sting. He was now an Interscope artist when
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: Juice World signed his name along the dotted line. He
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: had only had one live performance to his name, a
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: low key affair at a local rec center hosted as
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: a party for one of his fellow Homewood Flossmore High
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: School students. He pocketed one hundred dollars for the gig.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Now he had a cool three million dollars in his
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: bank account, Juice World cashed out a quartermill and bought
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: himself a jewel encrusted watch. Always a smart decision that
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: was the only thing that changed. He still preferred the
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: studio to the club, still picked nights with his PlayStation
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: over getting plastered at parties. More money arrived when the
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: royalties for Lucid Dreams started pouring in, and under the
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: guidance of both Grade A and Interscope, he had re
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: released that same melancholy magnum Opus in May, and this
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: time around it peaked at number two on the Billboard
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Hot one hundred. The song may have been labeled as
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: new to the general population, but his sentiments were as
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: old as Juice World's musical aspirations. Specifically, the line about
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: taking prescription pills to feel aok. The heartbreak holding Lucid
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Dreams together had long since faded, but the anxiety attached
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: to it couldn't been fresher. In fact, it was compounding young,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: trendy alive. Most musicians only ever get to pick two
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: of these adjectives at a time. Juggling all three had
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: proved fatal to other rappers of his generation Lil Peep
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: xxx t Tasion mac Miller, all in their twenties, all
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: in style, all now asleep in their graves. Three painful
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: lessons learned the hard way. Juice World wasn't about to
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: be the fourth, but the more successes poured in, the
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: more the pattern occupied his mind. The reintroduction of lucid
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: dreams what the world's appetite for his debut full length album,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Goodbye and Good Riddance. Immediately, Interscope put him on the
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: road for a headlining tour. He hadn't even toured in
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: support of anyone yet, but he was up to the
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: challenge so long as his body was well medicated. In
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, Juice World's percocet habit had grown to multiple
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: pills a day, much to the displeasure of Alexia. She
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: tried to keep him in check when she could, but
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: many days it felt like a losing battle. It was
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: her versus Juice World's body, how it was Juice World's
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: brain versus his own body. As long as it called out,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Juice World would cater to its cries. But she had
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: one secret weapon that worked in her favor, one way
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: to remind him of what was at stake. Shortly after
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: the release of Goodbye and Good Riddance, Juice World recorded
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: an EP called Too Soon, a ghostly tribute to the
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: SoundCloud rappers who had fallen in front of his eyes,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: in front of the world's eyes. Their deaths had been
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: so public that they felt inhumane. They were indecent as
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: they were unnecessary, and that was the fate of legends.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: That was exactly why Juice World didn't want to be one.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: The thought of the twenty seven club made him chuckle.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: The grades of his generation didn't even make it to
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: twenty one. Getting Juice World to recall Lil Peeve's fate
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: was all Alexia had to do to reopen that wound. Besides,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: juice World had to hang on. He had a collaboration
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: in the works with Future Future, the rapper who seemingly
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: set Juice World down this very path, was now interested
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: in sharing the studio. It seemed like the Internet held
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: only promises for juice World. First the viral success of
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: his SoundCloud account, then linking up with Future over an
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: exchange on Twitter over his album beast Mode two, and
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: they were working on a single together first and then
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: an entire tape. The idea tickled him. This was success
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: to him. Not the charts, not the streams, not the tour. No,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: a tape with this hero was the real win. Juice
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: World slipped the orange tablet back into his stash and conceited.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Alexi was right, a Tesla pill was too much for today.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back After this word word word, juice
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: World's fingers moved slowly, deliberately. He typed his message with care.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: It didn't need to be poetic, it just needed to
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: be sincere. Much like his songwriting process. He closed his
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: eyes and let his heart do the talking. I will
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: leave that shit alone for good watch me, he typed.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: I'm done with it. I got work to do a lot,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: And then he had sent The young rapper was kicking
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: codine once and for all. No one could lean with
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: him anymore, no more problem solving with styrofoam. He'd have
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: to pour out the last of his dirty sprite. As
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: Future like to call. He was doing it less for
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: his own sake and more for his girlfriends. Alexia surely
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: would be thrilled, except he had a new boo, now
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: by the name of Ali Lottie. She wasn't a huge
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: fan of his codeine habit either. The idea of losing
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: her scared juice World just as much as Ali feared
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: losing him to a tall cup of lean. The relationship
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: felt different. It felt adult solid. It made all his
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: past breakup tracks feel like mere teenage tantrums, and he
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: wasn't about to soil this more mature relationship by doing
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: something as immature as sipping sccer to hold himself accountable,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: he made a public statement about it, the most public
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: kind of statement possible, in twenty nineteen a tweet. He
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: ended his message with a glimmer of hope for his fans,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: but maybe he wrote it out for himself too. Addiction
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: kills all, but you can overcome. He watched his vow
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: collect thousands of likes. Future It quickly, and so he
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: could too. Right, he could do anything the Future could do.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: Earlier that year, Juice World had jetted across Europe to
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: perform in arenas, with Nicki Minaj replacing Futures Slot as
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: the opening act. He played shows literally meant for Future.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Their album together, which they decided to call World on Drugs,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: had debuted at number two on the Billboard two hundred
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: and hell that was only behind Lady Gaga. The collaborative
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: album primed him for the next era of his career,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: although these so called eras seemed to pass faster than
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: his birthdays. He didn't even have a year in between
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: his two full length albums, Death Race for Love, his
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: second record, had dropped only ten months after his first.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: It was practically unheard up to pump out full length
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: albums that quickly, then again, signing a nineteen year old
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: SoundCloud wrapper with only one performance under his belt for
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: three million clams. It seemed unheard of too. That's what
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Juice World did, the unheard of. The truth was he
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: didn't need this standard two years to write another record.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: With the exception of one song, he had Death Race
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: for Love buttoned up in seventy two hours. In the
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: span of three days, he churned out more than twenty
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: songs to save time. He slept in the studio in
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: between sessions, and the studio staff had never seen anything
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: like it. This kid barely needed a pen and a
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: pat He wrote out loud, stream of consciousness style, and
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: then hit record. Juice World didn't know why everyone was
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: so surprised. He'd been running his raps like this for
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: well over a decade, since he was four or five
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: years old. It felt like his viral one hour freestyle
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: from twenty eighteen all over again, everyone standing agog over
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: something that felt so simple, that hadn't even felt like
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: a challenge. At nineteen years old, Juice World had already
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: encountered one of fame's darkest realities. It's lonely when no
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: one else is at your level. Worse, it's embarrassing. Someone
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: asked for a photo with him while he was at
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: the Year the other day, actually asked for a selfie
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: while Juice World had his dick in his hand. Juice
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: World loved his fans, but this kind of adoration just
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: made him cringe. The sensation of being on display was unsettling.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: He was already putting out more than any other wrapper
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: in the game right now, both emotionally and in terms
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: of frequency. Wasn't that enough? Did they really have to
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: follow him into bathrooms or take photos of him and
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: aale sleeping on planes, just for a few likes on Twitter.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: At least there were still pills. He thought he was
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: only closing the door on Cody. The percocets could still playcatum.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: He closed his eyes and repeated his own mantra from
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: Goodbye and good riddance. Hold on, I'm gonna be fine.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna be fine. November eighteenth, twenty nineteen. Lax Juice
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: World's nerves tingled as a police canine rubbed its wet
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: nose up and down his jean pockets. He stood in
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: the stuffy terminal, fists clenched as he watched his departure
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: fall more and more behind schedule. First there was one dog,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: then more blue coats arrived with more canines, all tugging
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: on their leashes, hungry to unearth something on Juice World's
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: private jet. But this wasn't just the TSA. The men
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: currently boarding the private jet instead of Juice World's entourage,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: were customs agents. Those guys would book you over farm plants,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: let alone illegal drugs. Juice World should have been in
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: the year by now, soaring over the Pacific Ocean towards Australia,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: he had a set booked for Spilt Milk Festival in Canberra,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: along with the headline show in West Melbourne. Of course,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: he had packed accordingly to keep him comfortable for the
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: long flight. The dogs seemed to know it, and they
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: were sure taking their sweet ass time in there. Juice
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: World's body called out for a percocet, the same percocet
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: that he was currently trying to keep hidden from authorities.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: He tried to keep cool, maintain an apathetic demeanor. Instead,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: he looked eerily vacant, checked out behind those moody brown eyes. Mentally,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: Juice World was planted in another place in time, stuck
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: in a similar situation from only one year prior that
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: felt eerily familiar, and he already knew how that story ended.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: Back in twenty eighteen, TSA pulled them aside at LaGuardia
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: Airport because they spotted quote unquote organic materials in the
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: X ray machine when his suitcase passed through the security checkpoint.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: The agents ripped through his luggage until they pulled out
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: some pot in a few bottles of codine. Didn't TSA
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: only pull you aside if you had something that could
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: make a plane go boom? They weren't supposed to be
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: the drug police where they Maybe that's why they called
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: the real police, who happily escorted Juice World to the
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: nearest station in handcuffs. It was twenty eighteen. Were people
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: really still getting arrested for something as insignificant as weed?
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: The voice of the customs agent ripped Juice World from
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: his flashback You're cleared aboard. Juice World stepped into the jet,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: surprised with his entourage, found the nearest seat, and slowly
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: sank into the plush leather. He pulled out a Percocet
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: from his carry on and swallowed it before he could
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: even fasten his seatbelt. He wouldn't be able to enjoy
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: them much longer after quitting codine, his prescription pill habit
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: seemed to immediately spiral out of control. Ali saw it.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: His mom saw it from afar too. She could get
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: over her son performing the same rap music that was
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: once forbidden in her house, as she could even get
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: over him making a career out of it, But she
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: couldn't get over the idea, understandably, of losing him forever.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Trying to end this death race, Juice World had agreed
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: to enter rehab to kick his other drug habit. He'd
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: swallow of his pride and his final few pills later
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: this year. The facility his loved ones had selected didn't
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: have any openings until December. With the empty bed would
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: come too late. Juice World's next performances overseas would be
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: his last. Juice World was awake, but barely. He blinked
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: through bleary eyes, but could see only shapes, vague figures
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: looming over him as the artificial light of the airport
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: hallways pierced his vision. It took two doses of narakan
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: to stabilize him. The first dose did nothing like stabbing
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: a rag doll in the leg. The second dust brought
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: him to his current state of semi consciousness, just to
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: waken enough to glance up at the sterile white walls
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: of the airport. Two stabs of narkan for a handful
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: of pills, which pills no one knew. One of the
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: federal agents asked Juice World what he took. No response,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: the agent asked again. Juice World murmured under his breath
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: a few bars, a few final breaths. It was incoherent.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: By the time they got him to the Advocate Christ
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: Medical Center, they still didn't know what Juice World had taken. Worse,
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: his friends and his family never got a why why
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: he tossed pills in his mouth that morning in a
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: rush upon landing. Was he trying to hide them from
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: the authorities. That was always a possibility, but the seventy
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: pounds of pot found within his luggage suggested that he
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: would be busted regardless. Yes, you heard that right, Juice
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: World was holding seventy seven zero pounds of grass. That's
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: a shit ton of weed. What did he need seventy
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: pounds for was it even his? The bags that it
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: was hidden in had no name. Tax people like the
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: author and convicted drug traffick or freeway Rick Ross, weren't
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: entirely surprised with the epistash. Ross later told news site
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: lad TV that many emerging hip hop stars were not
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: as wealthy as their labels made them out to be,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: and thus it wasn't uncommon for rappers to sling dope
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: on the side to snag a few extra stacks. But
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: no one will ever know for certain. Medical personnel lifted
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: Juice World onto a gurney and wheeled him towards safety.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: As he tussled through a nightmare. He floated between visions
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: of private planes and marathon studio sessions, between the terror
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: of the TSA and the promise of a life without
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: any more description pills, without any percocet. He was so close.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: If you could just make it a little longer, It
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: wasn't supposed to end like this. If you could just
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: pull through this high one more time, then he saw nothing.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: Juice World left the Midway airport on a stretcher, and
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: then he left the medical center a few hours later
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: in a body bag. Two members of Juice World security
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: team left the airport in better condition, albeit in handcuffs.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: They were both hit with charges for the firearms found
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: hidden away and the luggage on board. Christopher Long thirty
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: six charged with a misdemeanor count of carrying and possessing
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: firearm in the first degree. Henry Dean twenty seven, charged
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: with one count of carrying a concealed firearm and an airport,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: and a second count of sale and or possession of
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: a high capacity magazine in metal piercing bullets. The drugs,
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: of course, went home with voice. There would be no
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: birthday celebration, not in Chicago and not in any of
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: the country's hip hop communities, who warned Juice World on
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: social media he had completed a trifecta of fallen SoundCloud rappers,
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: each barely aged past twenty, a trifecta he had no
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: interest in joining, but was now a part of Nonetheless
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: Lil Pete xxx, Tentasion and now Juice World. In California,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: record executives at Interscope stared down some two thousand unfinished
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: songs that Juice World had left behind, each equally fit
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: to appear on the next record. Two thousand songs Juice
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: World's crew spent the next six months paring it down
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: to only twenty two songs for his third full length,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: and they called it Legends Never Die, an awkwardly ironic
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: opposition to Juice World's lyrics from Too Soon. The record
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: debuted at the top of the Billboard two hundred when
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: it dropped in July of twenty twenty, logging nearly half
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: a million album equivalent units in its first week of
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: that More than two hundred thousand units accounted for pure sales,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: a true feat in the late twenty tents when streaming
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: dominated all other forms of musical consumption. In January twenty twenty,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: the toxicology report would confirm the Juice World overdosed on
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: a fatal combination of oxycodone and codeine, the same codeine
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: Juice World had vehemently sworn off just months earlier. But
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: there was a second promise still intact. When he died.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: Juice World was still on track to enter a rehabilitation center,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: and the opening was only two weeks away. Two weeks
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: too late. With his third album, Interscope made a prediction
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: Legends never die, but they were wrong. Legends do die.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: It's the lessons that live forever in that someone of
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: a Disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: And this is Disgraceland.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly and is produced in
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: found on the show notes page at disgracelampod dot com.
• 37:32
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• 37:35
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• 38:16
  Speaker 1: a bad done man.