On Sunday, Nov. 7, rapper Juice WRLD suffered a seizure at the Chicago airport and died at the hospital after going into cardiac arrest. 

Juice WRLD, whose birth name was Jarad Anthony Higgins, graduated from Homewood-Flossmoor Community High School in 2017 and continued on to pursue a music career. He began on the app Soundcloud, and reached fame with his hit song “Lucid Dreams.” Lucid Dreams accumulated 2.5 million plays on Soundcloud, and it’s official release made it on the Billboard Hot 100 list. After these accomplishments, Juice WRLD went on to release two albums: “Goodbye and Good Riddance” and “Death Race for Love.” 

Junior Haley Kampert, a fan of Juice WRLD, was among those who were upset about his passing.

“He’s a great artist, and feel like I was excited for his bright future. I was sad that he’s not going to make any more music.” 

Celebrities spoke out about Juice’s death on Sunday. Ellie Goulding, British singer and songwriter, tweeted, “I can’t believe it… you were such a sweet soul. I’ll always remember meeting you and your family on the video set and thinking how close you were. You had so much farther to go, you were just getting started. You’ll be missed Juice…”

Juice WRLD’s untimely death has also led to speculation and TMZ reports regarding the influence of drugs on his medical emergency. Recently, his mother, Carmella Wallce, spoke out about his battle with drug addiction. 

Wallace said, “As he often addressed in his music and to his fans, Jarad battled with prescription drug dependency. Addiction knows no boundaries and its impact goes way beyond the person fighting it.” She hopes that her son’s untimely death with help others beat their addiction too.  

Quran Briggs, a junior at Mt. Hebron High School, was also a fan of Higgins’ music. “Other artist [are] trying to get the word out that drugs are not good for you and that they are not going to help you.” Briggs believes that if other artists use their platform to spread this information, people will be inspired to take action to end their addictions. 

Prescription drug addiction controlled Juice’s life, and this unfortunate result goes to show the magnitude of negativity it can account for. If anything is learned from the death of a young, talented artist, it should be that others should end their addictions.