How were Juice WRLD and Young Dolph related?
Kendrick Lamar and Baby Keem. Akala and Ms Dynamite. Unsurprisingly, Snoop Dogg and Nate Dogg. The world of hip-hop is not uncharted territory for relatives to find themselves in.
And yet in a turn of events that feels more feature film than family dinner, there were a set of cousins to add to the list that didn’t even know they were related to begin with. Rappers Juice WRLD and Young Dolph, it turned out, are distantly related through the avenue of being second cousins.
The surprising familial ties were revealed under tragic circumstances. As fans will know, Juice WRLD died in 2019, and Young Dolph took to Instagram to pay a heartfelt tribute to the 21 year old rapper.
“Dam lil cuzz. i feel awkward as hell makin this post on social media,” Dolph began. “The world didn’t know that u was my blood lil cuzin.”
In the post, Dolph went on to explain just how he had come to learn that he and the late rapper were related. “Shit, i didnt even know it my own self until 2017 when your uncle told me at thanksgiving dinner,” he wrote. “I didn’t get a chance to fuck witchu how i had intentions to do and it’s killin me.”
“I can’t believe u gone that fast waaay too early. WHY GOD?” he further wrote. “I didn’t even get a chance to put my lil cuzzo in da back of the RR and give him all the game i wanted to give him, didn’t get a chance to pick him up in the Ferrari and kick shit wit him how I wanted to, didnt get a chance to drop the top on my Bentley and pull up on my grandma wit Juice in the car wit me, didn’t get a chance to po’ up in da lambo witchu like i wanted to, didn’t even get a chance to chop it up witchu and talk about our family history like i wanted to.”
“Honestly i didnt care about doin any music together because we blood and music is my last concern,” he continued. “I was on the plane comin back home from Germany when i got this bad news and it FU**D ME UP! watch over your moms and the rest of the family and tell God to make sure he save me a spot please. Matter fact, now that u wit God he can tell u all about my life, ask him about all the sh*t that i did to get to where I’m at”
Dolph then concluded the heartfelt statement with calling rapper the “youngest biggest legend of all time”, with an emoji of a goat and hashtag #LegendaryJuice.
Of course, very tragically, neither rapper is alive today. Young Dolph was murdered at the young age of 36 in November 2021 in Memphis. The city, where Dolph was raised from the age of two by his grandmother, has renamed a street Alolph “Young Dolph” Thornton Jr. Avenue. Two Tennessee lawmakers also proposed a bill to make November 17 the “Adolph Thornton Day of Service” in memory of and testament to the rapper’s local philanthropy.