Hey I'm Brian Hyatt and you're listening to Rolling Stone Music Now.

I'm in the studio with Brendan Klinkenberg and Simon Vosek Levinson.

Unfortunately, we're here to talk about another tragedy in the world of music.

Juice World was a rapper, a singer, and a real talent, died just after turning 21 on December 8th and we thought we would use this episode to look back at his life and his music and to look at the sort of state of the music industry that might have played some part in leading us here.

Brendan wrote a really excellent obituary for Juice World that's going to be the next issue of Rolling Stone.

You've also interviewed him a few times over the years. Maybe let's start at the

beginning. Where did he come from? What was he like? Why was he important?

Yeah, so he was a kid from Chicago. He wasn't someone who like was sure but to break into the music industry but he

He started recording in in like 2016 and 2017 which is when SoundCloud rap was kind of booming

which was this like very anarchic scene.

All the name comes from the platform

that everyone was uploading their music to.

And he kind of came at the tail end of that.

There'd been some like very established

stars had already been minted by the time Gee started releasing music, but he

cut through the noise really quickly and that's because you know we talk about how talented it is but he had just this

incredible facility with melody and so he had this like added benefit of

working with a Chicago producer named Nick Mira who gave him some really excellent beats and then he released a few

things but then the two songs that really carried him to the top of the soundcloud charts

where all girls are the same and lucid dreams.

Both of them are songs that you hear them once and you can kind of get that they will be hits.

And so he had a really rapid rise because of those.

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