Posted by Just over two years following his tragic death, Juice WRLD’s second posthumous album, Fighting Demons, arrived on streaming services Friday (December 10). While the project feature skits from Juice WRLD and Eminem, there was one missing due to a sample clearance issue.
Speaking to Complex, Lil Bibby explained that they were trying to get a clip of Lil Wayne talking about his mental health issues in an interview with Emmanuel Acho from earlier this year on the album, but Acho’s studio wouldn’t clear it.
“It’s always tough clearing everything,” Bibby said. “I had got this footage from this Lil Wayne interview, and it was really meaningful, really powerful.
“It was Lil Wayne talking about how he had mental health, and he shot himself. The cops saved him. So I felt like that was really meaningful. And up until yesterday, we were even trying to clear it, and we couldn’t clear it.”
Juice’s manager until his death Peter Jideonwo added, “We got denied—not by [Lil Wayne], not the interviewer, but the actual studio that owns the content. And something like that puts a hole in the album.”
The fallen Chicago native never officially collaborated with Lil Wayne, but Weezy did appear on Future and Juice WRLD’s WRLD ON DRUGS joint album but “Oxy” doesn’t feature any contributions from Juice.
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In addition to the release of Fighting Demons, HBO’s Music Box series will also be delivering a documentary titled Juice WRLD: Into the Abyss commemorating the life and career of Juice WRLD next week when it hits HBO on December 16.
Stream the album below.