Juice Wrld hated the one track that made him famous
(Credit: Andy Jones)

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Juice Wrld hated the one track that made him famous

The late SoundCloud rapper Juice Wrld was one of the most famous young artists in the US before tragically dying of a drug overdose in 2019. His debut album, Goodbye & Good Riddance, debuted at number four on the Billboard 200 and got certified triple platinum by the RIAA. However, the project’s second single, which was one of the emcee’s biggest hits, was not one he particularly liked. 

Juice Wrld emerged out of Chicago in 2015 as an underground Cloud Rap artist who was solely releasing his music through SoundCloud. Initially making music under the moniker JuicetheKidd, he quickly changed his name to JuiceWrld following suggestions from his associates that it was a more original name.

Slowly gaining notoriety locally, the lyricist (real name Jarad Higgins) joined the underground music collective and label Internet Money. While on the label through his own SoundCloud, he unofficially released the track ‘Lucid Dreams’, which got him signed to the Chicago-based label Grade A Productions, founded by famous rapper Lil Bibby and his brother. 

In a recent interview with Lil Bibby about Juice Wrld and the fifth anniversary of his debut album, the Grade A Productions co-founder revealed that Higginns didn’t care for ‘Lucid Dreams as a song. Speaking with the online publication HipHopDX, Bibby explained that when he told Higgins it was his best track, he responded: “You think so?”

Remembering how Higgins thought about the song and unsure about it, he disclosed that the late emcee told him: “You wanna know something? [This is] the only song that I [have] sat down and thought about.” Bibby elaborated that when Higgins had a solid track, he never had to think about releasing it. However, with ‘Lucid Dreams,’ it was different. 

The Grade, A Productions co-founder went further and revealed that because Higgins was spending so much time thinking that ‘Lucid Dreams’ may not be good, he made a new track, explaining: “He came back to me a couple days later and said, ‘Aye Bibby, check this out — I wrote this one.’ He played it for me, and it was kinda mid, it was kinda weak”.

He continued: “So I said, ‘You know what, Juice? Just keep doing your thing!'” However, in the end, Juice Wrld ended up releasing ‘Lucid Dreams’ officially, but Bibby concluded by saying: “Juice hated that song. He always hated it. He just trusted me”.

‘Lucid Dreams’ became a Diamond-certified song and has over 2.1 billion streams on Spotify. Following its success, an official remix was released featuring Lil Uzi Vert. Its accompanying music video was directed by the legendary Cole Bennett for his renowned hip-hop YouTube channel Lyrical Lemonade.

You can watch the visuals for the track below.