Rising Chicago-area rapper Jarad Anthony Higgins, known by his stage name Juice WRLD, died Sunday morning, the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed to NBC News.
Higgins hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart earlier this year with this studio album “Death Race for Love.” The 21-year-old artist was signed to Interscope Records and was considered at the forefront of the emo rap scene.
The cause of death is unknown. Police say Higgins “suffered a medical emergency” early Sunday morning while at Midway Airport in Chicago, NBC Chicago reports.
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TMZ reported Higgins had a seizure after a flight from California, although this has not been independently verified by NBC News.
The Chicago-area native released a collaborative album in 2018 with Future before releasing his debut record entitled “Goodbye & Good Riddance.”
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The album title began trending on Twitter shortly after TMZ first reported the news of his death.
Higgins once rapped about the short lives of artists in his single “Legends,” where he said he didn’t want to be known as a legend because “all the legends seem to die out.”
“We keep on losing our legends to the cruel cold world,” the lyrics said. “What is it coming to?”
Another lyric from the song, “What’s the 27 Club? We ain’t making it past 21,” also made the rounds on social media as fans mourned.
Higgins grew up in the Calumet Park neighborhood of Cook County learning different instruments, including piano and guitar, before turning to freestyle rap in high school, according to his YouTube biography. His work was featured on the “Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse” movie soundtrack and the BTS: World mobile game soundtrack.
