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Juice WRLDis the kid our parents warned us about.
The Midwest rapper/singer grew up in a strict, religious household barred from listening to hip-hop.
Juice found rap in middle school through the music of Future.
By 13, he was experimenting with the drugs he heard about in the records.
The hook seems like a fluke, a perfect sequence of words and notes discovered on accident.
Juice WRLD toys with sights and sounds without the baggage of their cultural significance.
He never heard the Sting song his multi-platinum selling hit sampled.
The cover evokes the PlayStation demolition derby gameTwisted Metal 4.
The beats experiment with familiar sounds, both through sampling and through careful excursions into other genres.
Make Believe flips Pharcydes Runnin.
Fast sounds like a trap producers take on Dave Matthews Bands Crash Into Me.
Pop-punk songs jump out in the middle.
Death Racesounds a lot like what we imagine a dystopian future would look like.
The world these records depict is forbidding.
The concept is cool.
The execution lives and dies on Juices ability to emote.
Fast is a crushing word about feeling like youre losing control of your lifes trajectory.
Syphilis revisits the drill rap sounds popularized by his home state, then Who Shot Cupid?
locates the ideal mix of moody acoustic guitars and thumping low end.
When he wants to, Juice WRLD has depth, range, and versatility.
But it seems like sometimes what he wants is just to coast.
The influence of genre hybridizers like Post Malone and Lil Uzi Vert is palpable.
Big blends quick phrasing and Auto-Tune just like Travis Scott.
The upper register notes in Rider sound like Swae Lee.
Robbery nicks Trippie Redds yarl.
There are too many rehashed flourishes Maze is like microwaved leftovers of Lucid Dreams and too many ill-conceived lines.
HeMotions spins out when Juice says Im back on my bullshit devil emoji.
Syphilis hits a speed bump on I can change anything, got them Obama eyes.
Feeling is a rocky sequence of shaky lines: Do it by my VLONE.
Momma told me I gotta stay focused / Told her I am not a Ford Focus.
But the rap gameisa lot like a demolition derby.
Crash, and thats that ass.Death Racesputters in spots, but the performance is gifted enough to avert catastrophe.
