Rapper Juice WRLDs 2018 breakout single Lucid Dreams was a hip-hop hit that felt spiritually indebted to a very un-hip-hop influence: Dashboard Confessionals 2002 Screaming Infidelities, which packaged the lamentations of a man deep in the throes of heartbreak in clean acoustic guitar and singer Chris Carrabbas injured whine. With Lucid Dreams, Juice WRLD more or less grafted Dashboards emotional blueprint onto clacking percussion and booming 808s. Whereas Insecurities is an intimate coffeehouse joint meant to be received by an audience of dozens, Lucid Dreams is a song that wants the entire universe to hear it. For Juice WRLD, love is like Jupiters Great Red Spot, an epic, swirling tempest too powerful for our frail human hearts to comprehend or bear.
Lucid Dreams reached #2 on the Hot 100 last June and turned Juice WRLD into the poster child for emo rap practically overnight. Since October, he has released a joint mixtape with Future, celebrated his 20th birthday, and embarked on a European tour with Nicki Minaj. The early Lil Uzi Vert and Post Malone comparisons he garnered have proven prescient; Juice is now nearly as popular as both of them. On his new album Death Race for Love, his chronic depression, drug abuse and lovesickness collide with his sudden wealth, fame and status.
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Death Race builds on Juices instinct to distill emotion rather than tell a story. On the opening track Empty, he gestures towards the affected nihilism of his 2018 debut album Goodbye and Good Riddance and uncorks the incredible eye-roller, My world revolves around a black hole / the same black hole thats in place of my soul. Death Race is rife with clunkers like these but its 22 tracks also constitute an unmistakable step forward for Juice WRLDs sadboy aesthetic, which has now become broader and more richly textured. The albums most compelling moments are Juices realizations that his money wont solve his problems: Its been months since I felt at home / But its okay cause Im rich / Sike, Im still sad as a bitch, he sings matter-of-factly on Fast. On Robbery, he offers the reverse humblebrag, One thing my dad told me was, Never let your woman know when youre insecure / So I put Gucci on the fur / And I put my wrist on iceberg. These admissions provide a grounding context for his emotional distress that his previous work has generally lacked; here, he appears less of an avatar of suffering and more like a human.
I have songs for the trap house, songs for the sock hop, songs for the Caribbeans, songs for raves, songs for slow dancing, Juice said in a recent interview with Rolling Stone. This turns out to be true on Death Race, where hes expanded his sound with help from veteran producers like Hit-Boy, Boi-1da, Cardo. No I.D., and Jahaan Sweet. The albums samples of Sicko Mode organ (Out My Way), Daniel Caesars Who Hurt You (10 Feet), and Pharcydes Runnin (Make Believe) are representative of the way it alternately leans into various mainstream trends and floats unforeseen experiments. Similarly, Juice frequently digresses from his rap game Mark Hoppus routine to rap more, and also to try out Offsets barking ad-libs (Big), Ski Masks chuckles, XXXTentacions screams (Syphillis) and Travis Scotts drugged-out croon (The Bees Knees). Hes still searching for the ideal balance of preening and wallowing, but hes getting closer.
Juice takes a few gambles on Death Race, and they all pay off. He yields an entire song to the ruminative Baltimore R&B singer Brent Faiyaz, and he allots one of the albums three guest verses to Clever, a 34-year-old journeyman rapper from Alabama, who yearns for Postmates more passionately on wax than anyone ever before. These unexpected moments spark joy in Juice WRLDs often joyless world in a way that too many momentslike when he uses some variation of the phrase numb my feels for the umpteenth time, or spells out winning like hes in the Scripps National Spelling Beedo not.
Still, Death Race succeeded in its most fundamental mission, which was to prove that Lucid Dreams was not a fluke. Songs like Fast, Ring, Hear Me Calling strike a dynamic balance of raw charisma and profound anxiety, and, this summer, at least one of them will likely make a run on the charts and solidify Juice WRLDs status as a genuine pop dynamo. While his melodrama tends to grow old over the course of a 22-track, 72-minute album, it is captivating in small doses.