(“Don’t give up on your ideas,” the producer says.) And Juice WRLD cut three songs with Rvssian on November 7. Hit-Boy originally built the bones of “She’s the One” as a song for Kehlani way back in 2015.
In addition to “Robbery,” a few other songs have origins that pre-date the January sessions. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen this level of dedication.” “ was sleeping in the studio,” Hit-Boy recalls. “Everything else I made in about 72 hours - I made like 23 songs in those days.” Hit-Boy connected with him for two-ish weeks in mid-January, and the pair worked on roughly 20 songs together. “‘Robbery’ is the only old song,” the rapper told Rolling Stone. Juice WRLD also worked with the producers Rvssian, known for reggaeton and dancehall missiles, and No I.D., who brings his flare for sampling, as well as the singer Brent Faiyaz, who makes gentle, bruised R&B.ĭespite all the new faces, Juice WRLD made the majority of Death Race for Love during bustling, work-through-the-night sessions at a studio in Hollywood earlier this year. To achieve that range, he called on new collaborators, especially Hit-Boy (Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “Niggas In Paris,” Drake’s “Trophies”), who is credited on five different Death Race for Love songs. “I have songs for the trap house, songs for the sock hop, songs for the Caribbeans, songs for raves, songs for slow dancing.” “People say that they can hear the rock influence, the Blink-182 influence, the emo influence in my music, but on this album you can hear ev-er-y-thing,” Juice WRLD promised during an interview with Rolling Stone earlier this year. How True Is 'Respect'? Fact-Checking the Aretha Franklin BiopicĪvoiding one-mode wonder-dom was part of the mission. Even one of the guitar-and-toxic-relationship songs here, “Make Believe,” draws an unexpected connection, suggesting a link between Juice WRLD and zany West Coast rap from the Nineties (Pharcyde’s “Runnin'”). He nods to global dance currents (“Hear Me Calling”) and sometimes shifts his tone halfway through a track (“The Bees Knees”). And there is plenty of that formula.īut Juice WRLD also peppers the album with steroidal SoundCloud rap (“Syphilis”), reverent R&B (“Demonz Interlude”) and boisterous, old-fashioned chest-thumping (“Big”). The safe play for Juice WRLD on his second solo album, Death Race for Love, would be more of the same - mournful guitar, self-involved lyrics sketching romantic torment, vocals from the school of why-croon-if-you-can-wail. Streamers gobbled it up - “Lucid Dreams” became the most-streamed single of 2018 not made by Drake - and commuters stuck in traffic enjoyed it too: “Lucid Dreams” became a multi-format radio hit. Juice WRLD’s “Lucid Dreams” was fraught and wounded, a stinging narrative of betrayal softened, slightly, by a sample of the actual Sting.