Juice WRLD sat down with Vulture a couple of days ago in hopes of revamping his "artist profile" with writer Molly Lambert. The title of the editorial piece was quite telling. You get a sense Juice WRLD is self-conscious about the way his career has shaped up thus far. The header of "Juice WRLD Doesn’t Want to Be Emo Anymore..." does present a logical fallacy given the finish on his new album released on March 8.
This self-conscious posturing is perhaps explained by the exponential growth that's occurred since his rapping start. With that said, Juice WRLD is already distancing from Death Race For Love, by discrediting his own creative process: in telling Lambert that his latest project took 4 days to complete. The proof is all in writing.
“When I got to that point. I recorded the album in four days. And it was like, after that, then I wasn’t self-conscious about dropping music no more. I wasn’t self-conscious about the album anymore…," he remarked.
Juice WRLD further explained his self-consciousness by drawing a parallel to the heightened expectations of his younger fans. "So just me realizing all those things, it kinda calmed my nerves about the new album," he opined. "I just know I poured my soul into it. Every song but two or three of them on the new album are all freestyles, all made up in those four days."
Juice WRLD might be telling the truth, I'm inclined to believe. He may have loved the emo aesthetic and simply grown tired of it, even though on some level, the impetus to speak out in public rings true like an insecure thought. Then again, a good amount of Juice WRLD fans genuinely enjoyed Death Race For Love and might feel slighted by his comments. The truth will prevail once he drops another full-length project, and thus charts a new directional path.