Chicago rapper and Billboard darling Juice Wrld accomplished a lofty goal at his Rolling Loud set Sunday: He got an entire festival crowd moving throughout his set.
Juice Wrld is an artist who stands out even amongst the new generation of SoundCloud rappers by effectively infusing his emo music and rap music with pop appeal. His tracks “All Girls Are the Same” and “Lucid Dreams” have done extremely well on the Billboard Hot 100, with “Lucid Dreams” hitting No. 3 on the chart.
A common pitfall of lower-card artists’ festival sets is that the crowd is unfamiliar with the music itself, which sucks the energy out of the artist and his or her fans alike. This was not a problem for Juice Wrld — both “Lucid Dreams” and “All Girls Are the Same” went over extremely well in the show. Another highlight was the infectious “Black & White,” a song Juice Wrld is particularly passionate about given his sudden spike in energy coinciding with the first beat drop.
The crowd passionately sang along to the hypnotic melodies in both tracks’ choruses in a way reminiscent of the alternative-rock concerts that were so prevalent in the 2000s.
In the middle of his set, Juice Wrld brought out fellow tour-mate YBN Cordae to perform the latter’s hit song “Kung Fu.”
The last song Juice Wrld played was a cover of Rolling Loud headliner Travis Scott’s “NO BYSTANDERS,” on which the former is featured. Juice Wrld sang his amazing hook on the song in unison with the crowd, perfectly capping off the short set. Bookending the concert was a “Fuck Xans” chat led by the rapper, in a moment that seemed more effective for drug abuse prevention than for boycotting contemporary rapper Lil Xan’s career.
