The death of Chicago rapper Juice Wrld has me shook, not only because nobody should be dying at age 21, but because in listening to his music I’ve always felt that he was in a dark place. I first heard his song "Lucid Dreams" months ago and the first time I heard it, I felt his pain. He basically gave a testimony of how he felt about a young woman and the drastic consequences of loving her so deeply.
That song really got my attention so I started to listening to some of his other songs and they were equally dark. Let me be clear, there is nothing wrong with writing dark music or performing songs that express how you feel in good times and in bad, however there was a pattern of this with Juice Wrld and I became concerned.
In October I saw him perform at the “Beat of my City Chicago” event and his performance was high energy and the crowd was loving every beat. But in the back of my mind I stopped wondering if his platform about mental health was for the sake of trending, but then I began to think no, this is real.
In my opinion deep inside Juice Wrld was hurting. There was a pain so deep in him and he poured it out through his music. With the word “Abyss” in big, bold letters scrolled across his arm, it confirmed just about everything that I thought about his mental state.
Juice Wrld’s shocking death is such a great loss for his family, his friends, his fans and the world because he was definitely about to make his mark on the world in such a way that would have helped the masses cope with their own dark spaces.
You’re at peace now bruh, your’re at that peace you sounded like you were so desperately looking for. No more masking the pain … rest well.