The death of Jarad Higgins, most commonly known as American rapper “Juice Wrld,” is the latest example in a too-long list of performers whose popularity explodes after their untimely death. 

Higgins died suddenly on Dec. 8, just a few days after his 21st birthday. On that day, Juice Wrld’s private plane landed at the Atlantic Aviation Hangar in Chicago Midway International Airport. Officers were waiting at the Atlantic Aviation Hangar on a suspected tip that the plane was carrying contraband, sources said in an article from the Chicago Tribune. Once the plane landed, the authorities started to search through the luggage that was found on the plane. While the authorities were searching the luggage, Juice Wrld began to convulse and started having seizures. He was then rushed to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead. 

After Juice Wrld’s  death, his hit song from 2018, “Lucid Dreams,” took the number two spot out of 200 on the Spotify charts. This was a major change considering that “Lucid Dreams” was number 118 out of 200 just a few days before his death. Spotify was not the only music platform that had this spike; “Lucid dreams” had the number one spot on Apple Music’s top 100 chart as well.  

It is common to have a singer’s music gain popularity after their death. There have been a couple of examples of this in the past. 

 “We’ve seen it with Mac Miller last year and some other SoundCloud rappers, including Lil Peep and XXXTentacion. They always jump to the top of the streaming charts right away,” Ian Drew, consumer editorial director at Billboard, told USA TODAY.

A lot of times when a musician dies, that is the first time that we hear about them. So when we finally find out who they were, we start to check out their songs. In a song by Lil Peep and XXXTentacion, XXXTentacion makes a reference to this. 

“It’s unfortunate because it’s like, yo, when people die, that’s when we like ‘em, you know? ‘Cause your remorse kinda makes you check ‘em out,” say the lyrics by XXXTentacion in “Falling Down.” 

In the case of grief, most of the time one person will go through it differently than someone else. In the case of Juice Wrld’s fans, his songs being on top of the charts is a sign of respect and remembrance of who he was and the music that he created for his fans to enjoy.

It is a weird topic, listening to someone’s music after they are gone. But those who listen to that music have their own reasons for doing so.  

“His music was played to remember him and honor his music,” sophomore Alex Boyle said.

For those high schoolers that listen to rap music, it can be hard for them to lose an artist that they listen to and care about. So the music is the only thing that those fans have to hang on too, which is why the artist’s music gains popularity.

The things that we love can be gone at anytime so people should learn to respect the music that musicians provide for us because we never know when that music might end.