A majority stake in late rapper Juice WRLD‘s rights and income streams quietly sold to Opus Music Group in early 2022 in a nine-figure deal, according to a source close to the acquisition. Opus now owns 90% of Juice WRLD’s interest in master recording income and 90% of his share of publishing ownership.
The prolific Chicago-born talent’s deal includes his “hundreds” of unreleased tracks as well as his full released music catalog. Ownership of his master recordings remains with his label partners, Grade A Productions and Interscope Records.
Opus Music Group is financially backed by Elliott Management, a New York-based investment management company with one of the largest activist funds in the world. According to Opus Music Group’s website, the firm represents three artists: Juice WRLD, Rauw Alejandro and Maluma.
Juice WRLD boasts five top five-charting albums on the Billboard 200, encompassing the entirety of his charting releases. Two of those albums, Death Race for Love and Legends Never Die, finished at No. 1 on the tally. The late rapper has also charted nine songs on the Billboard Hot 100. He’s earned 16.3 million equivalent album units in the United States for his solo albums as well as his collaborative set with Future, according to Luminate. He also has 26.2 billion on-demand official streams in the U.S. for his catalog of songs where he’s billed as the primary artist, including those credited to Future & Juice WRLD from their collab set, according to Luminate.
Opus Music Group, which would not comment on deal terms, emailed the following statement to Billboard: “To represent the body of work of Juice Wrld – whose cultural significance and generational influence can’t be overstated – is an honor and a responsibility.”
A representative for Juice WRLD declined to comment.
Born Jarad Anthony Higgins, Juice WRLD died in 2019 following a seizure when he was 21 years old. He is best known for his hit “Lucid Dreams,” a melodic, emo-tinged rap track that brought the Soundcloud Rap subgenre to mainstream airwaves in 2018 and reached No. 2 on Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart. The emotive, catchy track was the focal point of his debut album, Goodbye and Good Riddance (2018), a record which also included “All Girls Are the Same,” his first song to gain serious traction, as well as “Lean wit Me,” “Wasted” and “Armed and Dangerous.” That same year, he released the collaborative mixtape with Future called Future & Juice WRLD Present…Wrld on Drugs. One year later, he released his second album, Death Race for Love, which featured the song “Robbery” and reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
Juice WRLD was also known for featuring on other artists’ tracks, often crossing traditional genre lines in the process. Some of his collaborators included Lil Uzi Vert, Benny Blanco, Trippie Redd, Ellie Goulding and BTS.
Posthumously, Juice WRLD has released even more music, starting with the 22-track record Legends Never Die (2020) and Fighting Demons (2022).
