This is the 1st posthumous outing & 3rd full-length album overall from Chicago rapper Juice WRLD. Quickly becoming a prominent face in the emo rap trend in 2018 off the strength of his commercial debut Goodbye & Good Riddance, he tragically passed away late last year just 9 months after the release of his sophomore effort Death Race for Love. Now even though I personally found both of those albums to be average at best, the kid was undeniably talented as proven on songs like “Lucid Dreams” & his astonishing 1-hour Tim Westwood freestyle. But just 7 months after Juice’s passing, his estate is coming together with Legends Never Die.
After a spoken word intro, the first song “Conversations” talks about his demons over a spacious Ronny J beat while the track “Titanic” compares himself to that of a sinking ship over a cavernous DY instrumental. The song “Bad Energy” talks about flushing out all the negativity in him over a skeletal instrumental while the track “Righteous” talks about how his anxiety’s the size of a planet over a melancholic beat from longtime collaborator Nick Mira.
The song “Blood On My Jeans” is an endearing tribute to his girlfriend Ally Lotti with an acoustic trap beat from Gezin while the track “Tell Me U Luv Me” finds him begging Ally to tell him everything will be ok on top of an instrumental with a bit of a dancehall influence to it. The song “Hate on the Other Side” by Polo G & The Kid LAROI seems out of place since Juice has very little appearance on it whatsoever & the Marshmello production is just kinda plain to me.
After the “Get Through It” interlude, the track “Life’s a Mess” with Halsey is an awkward rapper/pop singer duet that we’ve all seen done a million times already while the song “Come & Go” feeds into another pop rap cliche as Juice goes in on top of an EDM instrumental. The song “I Want It” talks about love over some more acoustic trap production while the track “Fighting Demons” needs no further explanation over a keyboard-inflicted beat.
The song “Wishing Well” talks about how he deals with fame over a glossy instrumental while the track “Screw Juice” tells the listener if he made it as far as he did, they can as well & the beat on here is just monstrous. The track “Up Up & Away” talks about getting high over an acoustic instrumental & after The Man, The Myth, The Legend” instrumental, the song “Stay High” talks about balance over a moody beat.
The track “Can’t Die” talks about how Ally changed his life over a synth-heavy instrumental from DY & before the album finishes off with the “Juice WRLD Speaks from Heaven” outro, the final song “Man of the Year” is a tearjerking celebration of life over a rap rock instrumental from Skrillex of all fucking people.
This is just a tad bit better than the latest Pop Smoke album Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon. It was clearly put together out of passion rather than just money, but there are slightly more hits than misses during the 55 minutes of this final product.
Score: 3/5
Legends Will Never Die 