Meet The Production Team That Wants To Make Juice WRLD Immortal
The rapper Juice WRLD’s emotional vulnerability, often crooned on an emo-rap canvas, captivated millions, making him one of the highest-streamed artists years after his tragic death in 2019. His prolific nature, marked by hourlong freestyles and a 3,000+ song vault, has only added to his legacy. Grade A label co-owners Peter Jideonwo and Brandon “Lil Bibby” Dickinson tell Rolling Stone that even with his music experiencing voracious leaks from hackers and (former) clout-chasing friends, Juice WRLD had enough quality songs to put together The Party Never Ends, which they say will be his last album.
The project was cultivated over years by Bibby, who went on a treasure hunt to find unreleased music from producers and engineers Juice WRLD worked with. He said he went through four different project iterations, with each tracklist being ravaged by leaks before they could release it. While there are previously leaked songs on The Party Never Ends, Bibby said he was intent on giving fans new Juice WRLD music. He also added his own flourishes to hammer home the Party theme. “I wanted it to feel like you was at a Juice WRLD concert,” he says on our Zoom call. “On some of the skits or some of the interludes, you can hear the chants of the crowd. I actually took real live footage and audio from Juice concerts, and I just wanted you to feel like you were at his last show.”
The album will debut at the final Juice WRLD day at Chicago’s United Center on Saturday night, where his Fortnite concert will also have its first showing.
Like Travis Scott and Eminem before him, an animated version of Juice WRLD will perform his most beloved hits for over 400 million Fortnite users. The concert will also be paired with a November 30th launch of a Juice WRLD UEFN Island within the game, where users will be able to listen to unreleased Juice WRLD music in Xbox lounges and purchase Juice WRLD-inspired game controllers. Jideonwo said that he was intent on ensuring the Fortnite collaboration, like everything that carries Juice WRLD’s likeness, was done “tastefully,” revealing that he was on hundreds of calls with the game developers over time.
Grade A’s efforts are to preserve a legacy that Dash Sherrod, the president of Geffen Records Urban A&R who signed Juice WRLD to Interscope, believes is immense. “To me, Juice’s lasting legacy was the love he spread through his music, through his actions, his ability to make everyone around feel heard, his attention to people, making it cool to be vulnerable, his hard work, he was so intentional,” he says. “Most of all, I miss his fun-loving and giving personality. I miss him so much.”
Jideonwo and Bibby talked to Rolling Stone about compiling The Party Never Ends, stewarding over Juice WRLD’s legacy, and their sometimes love-hate relationship with his fans.
What’s the most memorable moment you’ve had observing Juice WRLD in the studio?
I seen him one-take a couple songs. I never saw that shit before, so that’s always memorable. When he recorded the song “Robbery,” in the beginning [he said] “ooh, this Hennessy is strong as fuck, boy.” That was the first time I saw a young person that could drink Hennessy straight, and he had the big bottle, and it was two-thirds of it gone. I just thought it was something wrong with him because I can’t even drink a little drop of Hennessy straight out. That shit make me want to throw up.
Did he one-take that one too?
Bibby: No, not “Robbery’, but I just remember him having the Hennessy. And then there’s this one song, “Fast,” if you listen to it, he’s snoring in the beginning. So people would just wake him up, shove him, and then he would wake up and then record the craziest shit.
Peter: You could hear him snoring on the record.
Bibby: Yeah, if you listen to it he’s snoring in the beginning. You could hear him say, “Play it one more time.” [Laughs]
What made y’all decide that this upcoming project would be the last one?
Bibby: I think it just feels right to just end it on a high note like this. I know he’s got a ton of leaked records, but I think it feels right to end it like this with the Fortnite party, with the United Center party and make it a celebration. A lot of his music be kind of sad. This one feels more upward, like a celebration.
How intent were y’all about making the actual songs fit a more upbeat mood?
Bibby: I made sure I found some of the best upbeat songs and then found the unleaked ones that are upbeat too, so. But it’s a little mix of everything, though. It’s just not fully.
When did y’all initially start ideating or crafting this project?
I always have a list of my favorite Juice songs, but the fans always leak my favorite ones. So it’s been tough putting it together because I got to always go back in and find new good songs because, somehow, it’s new leaks every single day.
What was the process of sifting through all of the songs in his vault and figuring out what belonged on the album?
This has been a different type of process. I would find my favorite leaked ones and my favorite unleaked ones. Then [I’d be] linking with different producers, seeing if they have stuff that’s not heard. It’s been just a lot of studio sessions, a lot of me talking to the fans, seeing what they would want. It’s just been really tricky. The Juice fans they got something to say about anything you do, so I try to please as many of them as possible.
How complicated is your relationship with his fans? On the one hand, they’re amplifying the leaks because they love his music, but then, on the other hand, it’s hurting the ability to feed his family with the project.
I got a love-hate thing with them. I like that they’re excited about him and that they want to hear about the leaks. It’s crazy to see that five years later, they still love him this much. But I don’t know. It is hurting the albums and the money and everything, but at this point, I don’t really look at it for the money. I want to please the fans and make sure everything is done proper. I do get tired of them sending threats and saying crazy shit to me sometimes, but I feel like it’s teaching me to not care what people think. I already didn’t care what people think that much, but now I’m on a different level.
So they’ll be in your DMs like, “Yo, drop the album or else?” What would they be saying?
Peter: All kind of shit you could think of. “I hope somebody comes and shoots you in your face. I can’t wait to see you. This going to be your last day breathing. N words this. I hope somebody hangs you.” I think my number has probably been leaked at least five different, six different times. They posted my social security numbers, phone numbers, and addresses. People be sending pizzas to my house. Somebody just sent a pizza to the warehouse on Friday. Domino’s. Just all types of craziness, man. It’s like, “Damn, bro. Over some music?” But to the fans, it’s deeper than the music.
A fan’s a kid. He’s like 16 or 17. And he’s like, “Put out every song Juice WRLD made. Every song to be released. You need to drop a song every day. It doesn’t matter. And you need to make all the clouds form in the sky to spell Juice WRLD. Michael Jackson needs to come back and be on the first record.” That’s how they think, right? They don’t think about processes or any business things going on. They don’t care about any of that. There’s a lot of individualism going on in the situation where fans don’t really care about the bigger picture. Some fans are so extreme that they’re like, “Well, my favorite song is not coming out, so you have to die.” That’s the type of things that say online. And they come up with all these conspiracies and all these different things like that over music, which is mind-boggling to me. So yeah, “Drop the music or else” is a light day for Juice fans sometimes.
How many different versions of the album do you think you went through where you felt like, “Oh, this is it,” but then leaks fuck it up, and you have to go back to the drawing board?
Bibby: At least like four. And I have to find more songs. I know if I just give them an album full of leaks, then they’ll go crazy.
How many people did y’all have to cut off behind all those leaks?
Bibby: At this point, I just work with it.
Peter: [It’s] getting to the point where you damn well know some of the people leaking the music and you got to work with them. If not, they’re going to leak more music. You don’t really have proof that they leak the music, but you know they might be leaking the music. So it’s like you got to. If you don’t work with them, there are more songs going to come out, and every other day, it’s a new conspiracy theory. We just did the listening party in Vegas and one of the streamer guys came up to me and he like, “Man, you know so-and-so be leaking all the music.”
And I was like, “What?” But you hear that kind of shit once a week at this point, so you don’t know what’s true. But what I do know is true is that people who were attached to or in the circle when Juice was alive did a lot of sabotage for financial gains, or just to be funny, or just to get some clout.
You’ve talked about the leaking. What is the most memorable positive interaction you’ve had with a Juice Wrld fan?
Bibby: We had this pop up on Fairfax, and this girl came up to me; she had about five tattoos. She basically got every tattoo that Juice had tattooed on him, and she just started busting out crying, and that actually kind of freaked me out. But then [she was like], “Juice saved my life. I was going to kill myself.” And then somebody said something to me, “Drop the fucking music.” She was about to fight the dude, and I had to tell her, “Nah, I don’t want y’all fighting.” I don’t know. That shit was just crazy. Yeah, that one was crazy.
How did y’all feel when you saw what Bronny said about Juice Wrld? Did y’all know that before he said that publicly?
Bibby: I always knew Bronny was a big Juice fan, but I didn’t know it was to that extent.
Peter: I figured he would say something like that because the man has [had] “999” in his bio since he was like 14 years old. So I figured that he was, but it was really good. And that’s what I mean by legacy. To see the younger generation coming up and a person as important as Bronny to culture as far as who his dad is and just the whole world, watching him grow up right in front of our eyes…to finally get a chance to get in the NBA and say “I’m putting on that jersey, that number nine, for Juice Wrld,” that’s very impactful because there could have been a billion different reasons and people that he could have chose. That just shows you how impactful it is, and, especially because he is not here, it’s not even a glazing situation. There are enough legends in the basketball world that he could have said, “This is why I’m wearing this number.” But he chose a musician and if there’s no other way to define the impact of Juice Wrld, that’s a clear statement right there.
How did y’all go about deciding which would be the best features to put on the album?
Bibby: I always picked the features of the people that I know that Juice knew and he hung out with and the people that he really wanted to work with.
I saw Eminem is going to be on the project. I was wondering how that track came together.
Peter: I don’t think Juice and Eminem ever met before, but they definitely talked on the phone on FaceTime and things like that. But yeah, the album from the album cover to the features, I think, is really just trying to align people that Juice loved and worked with or looked up to. Even Murakami, two weeks before he passed away, [Juice] flew to Tokyo to talk about doing the album cover for him. Also, making an animation and things like that. So that’s why we felt like it was important for the last album that Murakami did the cover.
How did “AGATS2” with Nicki come together?
Bibby: I just reached out to Nikki and told her we were about to drop our albums, and I sent her a couple of songs, and that’s the one she picked. She really liked that one.
I saw her mention in a livestream this summer that she wanted to maybe have it on her project. Was that in talks?
Bibby: No, maybe some other records she was trying to put on her project. I know she did a few with Juice, and yeah, she would hit me up sometimes and try to get different songs for her album.
I saw there was talk about a Kid Cudi “Good Times” record, but Cudi said that y’all “went Ghost.” What are your thoughts?
Peter: We asked Cudi a bunch of times, and I responded to him when he said all that on Twitter. I said, “That ain’t true.” It’s just, I don’t know. I don’t want to disrespect bro. I feel like sometimes he does stuff that doesn’t make any sense. We definitely want to put the record out, so if he’s reading this, tell him we want to put the record out. He didn’t clear it. So it’s the other way around.
Can you tell me more about the Fortnite concert?
Fortnite has been doing these concerts for what? The last three years. They’ve done Travis, they’ve done Eminem, they’ve done Marshmello. This is, I believe, their fourth installation and this time around is Snoop, Eminem, Ice Spice, and Juice. And I think Juice, for the longest time, has been the most requested artist that they’ve wanted on their platform. I think this celebrates Juice because, as big as Juice is, it’s a whole new audience that has not been exposed to his music. Around 400 million people around the world will tune in to watch this concert. And also we are going to show it at the Juice WRLD Day. I just think it’s a great opportunity. We’ve already seen success just by announcing the concerts coming. We’re almost at 30% lift in the catalog on various songs. But we’ve also… I’m sure you probably saw the news about Lucid Dreams and All Girls Are The Same re-entering the top 200.
We got to attribute that to Fortnite and also the news of the new album coming in with the trailer and the announcements. With the trailer, the announcement of the cover, the Fortnite, the Juice WRLD Day, all that stuff. So we’ve [experienced a] 30-something percent increase. I think it’s just a great thing overall for the community, and we’re looking forward to it
How much were you a part of that creative process when it came to putting together his image and putting together the set and things of that nature?
The whole way through. I mean, we did over 150 to 200 Zoom calls just with the Fortnite team alone in a seven to nine-month span. That plus internal calls. We enlisted a few different people to help build out. We used some of the scans from the Juice WRLD statue that sits in front of the Interscope building to create his face, to get it perfectly. It was very tedious. Probably one of the most tedious things I’ve done my whole life, just for everybody, to be honest. From Bibby to Dave and then the legal processes and just also keeping something so big under wraps.
I’ve seen you say that this is the last project, but you’re open to doing guest verses going forward. How will you go about making sure those feature appearances make sense?
On the music side, we understand what a good verse is, and I think the good part about working on Juice stuff is when people receive a song from Juice that we say, “Hey, do you want to get on the song?” Or whatever, people almost treat it like it’s Drake or Kendrick Lamar, to be honest. And they try to do their best because they know at any point in time, if this is put out correctly and is received correctly, it could be a very, very big song. Juice has the most songs in history, with at least 100 million streams. And he has one of the highest stream rates of any artist that’s ever been released, right? I think every Juice song averages 100 million streams.
So when it comes to picking the verses and making sure they’re good and authentic, it’s not the hardest job because people take it very seriously because it’s almost looked at [as] an opportunity to get another hit record. So I think people take it very seriously in that manner.
Would you be able to say how many placements you think he’ll be on within the near future?
Peter: I can’t necessarily say that because-
Bibby: Not that many.
Peter: Because Juice… it’s hard for us now to say, “Okay, here’s a Juice WRLD verse.” We can say, “Here’s a song.” But as far as his verse on somebody else’s new song, I think that’s impossible. But you will hear his other songs that are not released currently. Some of them might come out in the future but it’s going to be scarce.
Bibby: My favorite word is “No.”
How often do y’all get hit up for verses?
Peter: I think we said, “No,” enough. People stopped asking.
Peter, you’ve said the next chapter is to make Juice WRLD immortal. How do you plan to go about doing that?
Peter: I think by doing immortal shit. You got to do things that are groundbreaking and very global. From museums to movies to art installations to… I don’t know, maybe the next Juice WRLD album, send it on a SpaceX with Elon or send it up there for a while and then it gets released when he and Missy go to Mars. But in all seriousness, I think we have to think outside the box and really come correct, and I think that’s how you’ll make him immortal. Really doing stuff like what I just said, maybe sending an album up to space for the next live, for the next development to listen to it, that’s what makes him legendary. Imagine that you wake up in the morning and see, “The Mars Rover is going to Mars and they’re taking a Juice WRLD album that will be played in 2075.” That’s how you make his name immortal. Just really doing a lot of cool, tasteful things that push the needle. I think a lot of complacency is surrounding us nowadays, where everybody does the same thing, and I think we can separate Juice from the rest.
Even though I think he’s already done enough to be immortal, at least on the music side, just like Michael Jackson. I don’t think you’re going to stop hearing about Juice WRLD from now until forever, to be honest. It’s going to be in the conversation, but I do think that, yeah, we have some more work to do.
When you say “tastefulness,” I know sometimes with artists who’ve passed, there’s been criticisms where there have been things that have come out that seem like somebody’s just trying to get money off the artist. So going forward for you, how do you manage the line of doing things tastefully?
Bibby: I feel like you got to make sure everything has a meaning. It’s not about the money at this point. Everything got to mean something. So before you put out something or release something to the world, you got to think to yourself, “What is the meaning behind this, how people are going to take this?”
What is the world missing without him here physically?
Bibby: I miss him a lot. Just pulling up on him, hearing his corny jokes or his laugh. To me, that was the nicest person that I ever met in my whole life. I never saw him say no. I seen him do 20 songs with every artist, from the smallest artists in the world to… I don’t know. I just seen him do too much selfless stuff. I never met nobody like that.
Peter: I think what the world is missing is competition. I feel like the bar has been lowered tremendously. I think Juice made this rap look effortless, putting up hits without trying, which really put the world on notice at one point, to the point where it’s like, man was freestyling Billboard hits. And to do it again in a different way, I think that’s missing. I don’t think we’re ever going to see another person like Juice again, unfortunately. I’ve been waiting almost five years now to find another person that could freestyle as good as him. I ain’t seen it.
Actually, just the crazy part is the art of freestyling kind of died when he left us, also. I remember when he was here, people like Cordae and other rappers used to freestyle. They used to try to do what Juice did. And I think now, since he’s been gone, they have no reason to. Because it’s like, yeah, they can still do it, but who’s the competition? Who are they going after? You know what I’m saying? Who are they trying to impress? What’s the bar? Then I just think that those types of things just disappeared, and I think that’s what the world misses, and I wish he could bring it back.
We need to make hip-hop fun again. That’s why, if Chris Long puts up a Juice WRLD freestyle video right now, it’ll get a million views in a day or two because nobody else fills that void. And also, I think emotional music has kind of lost its touch. We’re now in the age of…I’m speaking for rap. I don’t know about the other genres, but I think you’ve seen over time the tides have turned, and now everyone’s like, “Nah, we want turned-up music, and we want…” All these other types of rap. And I don’t think it’s because people shifted or humans became different. I just think that a lot of people were left to carry that mission, and the new guys coming up just didn’t do it as well. And that’s why people were like, “Since the quality is not at the level that it once was, we just want something different.” If you go to Mario Carbone’s restaurant and you keep eating the same rigatoni every day, and it’s so good, and then one day it stops and they’re like, “Well, we still make rigatoni, but it’s not as good,” you’re just going to want to try a new dish at this point. And I think those are the different things that, when Juice left, kind of changed the game and just went with him, to be honest.
