Before the diamond chains and the private jets, there was just a kid named Jarad. He was a regular student at Homewood-Flossmoor High School in Illinois. Most people know the superstar who conquered Spotify. They don’t know the kid who played the trumpet in the band. Honestly, it’s wild to think about. He was walking those hallways just like anyone else, probably stressed about a math test or wondering what was for lunch.
He wasn’t Juice WRLD yet. He was Jarad Higgins.
If you look back at his time there, between 2013 and 2017, you see the blueprint of a legend. But it wasn't some polished, perfect rise to the top. It was messy. It was loud. It was deeply suburban. Homewood-Flossmoor, or HF as the locals call it, is a massive school. It's the kind of place where you can either get lost in the crowd or make a massive name for yourself. Jarad chose the latter, but not always for the reasons his teachers might have liked.
Juice WRLD in high school: A talent that couldn't be contained
Jarad didn't just wake up one day and know how to freestyle for an hour straight on Tim Westwood. He practiced. Constantly. In the hallways of HF, you could find him rapping. He’d be at his locker, or in the cafeteria, just flowing.
He was a bit of a class clown.
Teachers at HF remember him as being incredibly bright but easily bored. That’s a common trait among geniuses, right? He could finish his work in ten minutes and spend the rest of the period drumming on the desk or humming melodies. He was obsessed with music. It wasn't just rap, either. Because of his mom’s influence—she was very religious and didn't initially want him listening to "dirty" rap—he grew up on a diet of rock and pop-punk.
Think about that for a second. While other kids were strictly listening to Chief Keef (who was huge in Chicago at the time), Jarad was vibing to Fall Out Boy, Panic! At The Disco, and Billy Idol. You can hear those emo influences in every song he ever made. High school was where those two worlds—the Chicago drill scene and the suburban pop-punk scene—collided in his head.
The band geek and the rebel
Most fans don't realize Jarad was a multi-instrumentalist. He played the trumpet. He played the drums. He played the guitar. He wasn't just some kid who liked to talk fast; he understood music theory. He understood how a song was built from the ground up.
But he was also struggling.
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High school is tough for anyone, but Jarad was dealing with a lot of internal weight. He started experimenting with drugs during these years. He was open about it later in his lyrics, mentioning how he started doing "lean" and taking pills while he was still a teenager. It’s a dark part of his story, but it’s the truth. You can't talk about Juice WRLD in high school without acknowledging the pain that started to brew behind the scenes.
The SoundCloud era begins in the classroom
While he was supposed to be studying, Jarad was recording. He started off under the name JuiceTheKidd.
The name came from his haircut at the time—a high-top fade that looked like Tupac’s character in the movie Juice. He was uploading tracks to SoundCloud directly from his phone. Sometimes he’d record in the bathroom because the acoustics were better. Can you imagine? One of the biggest artists of a generation was literally recording vocals in a high school stall between periods.
His early stuff was different. It was more aggressive. More "traditional" rap. But as he went through junior and senior year, the melody started to take over. He realized he had a voice that could do more than just rhyme. He could soul-search.
What his classmates actually thought
If you talk to people who went to HF with him, they describe him as "lowkey" but friendly. He wasn't the captain of the football team. He wasn't the prom king. He was the guy with the headphones always around his neck.
- He was known for being able to freestyle about anything.
- Give him a pencil, a backpack, and a Gatorade bottle, and he’d give you a four-minute verse.
- He wasn't shy about his ambition.
- He told people he was going to be big.
A lot of kids probably rolled their eyes. You know how it is. Every high school has a "rapper." Usually, they disappear after graduation and end up working a 9-to-5. Jarad was the 0.001% who actually meant what he said.
The impact of teachers and the "HF" culture
Homewood-Flossmoor is known for its arts program. It’s a school that actually fosters creativity. Even though Jarad was often distracted, the environment played a role in his development. He had teachers who recognized his verbal intelligence. Even if he wasn't turning in every essay, he was clearly a wordsmith.
He graduated in 2017.
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That’s the crazy part. Within a year of walking across that stage in his cap and gown, he was a multi-millionaire. "Lucid Dreams" blew up so fast it made everyone’s head spin. One minute he’s sitting in a desk in Flossmoor, Illinois, and the next he’s the face of a new genre.
Why his high school years matter now
We look back at these years because they explain the "why" behind his music. The loneliness, the heartbreak, the suburban boredom—it’s all there. When he sang about "All Girls Are The Same," he was drawing from the raw, fresh wounds of high school relationships.
It wasn't a persona. He wasn't "playing" a character. He was just Jarad from HF, talking about his life.
There's a specific kind of nostalgia in his music that resonates with Gen Z because it feels like it was written in a high school hallway. Because it was. The vulnerability he showed was something he developed when he was just a kid trying to find his place in a massive school of 3,000 students.
Misconceptions about his "overnight" success
People think he just appeared out of nowhere. "Lucid Dreams" felt like a glitch in the Matrix because of how quickly it topped the charts.
But the work was done at Homewood-Flossmoor.
The thousands of hours of freestyling in the back of the class. The hundreds of songs he uploaded to SoundCloud that only got 10 plays. That was the foundation. By the time the world heard him, he was already a veteran of his own craft. He had already failed and evolved a dozen times over before he ever stepped into a professional recording studio.
Lessons from Jarad’s journey
If you’re a fan or even just someone looking at his life, there are real takeaways from his time as a student.
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First, the "band geek" to "rockstar" pipeline is real. Learning instruments gave him an edge over every other "SoundCloud rapper." He wasn't just catching a beat; he was making music.
Second, your environment doesn't define your ceiling. Jarad was from a quiet suburb. He wasn't from the "trenches" in the way some Chicago rappers were. He didn't try to fake that. He was honest about his suburban upbringing, and that honesty is what actually made him a global star. He spoke to the kids who felt like him—middle-class kids dealing with anxiety and heartbreak.
To truly understand the legacy he left behind, you have to look at the Homewood-Flossmoor yearbook. Look at the kid with the wide smile and the trumpet.
That’s where the magic started.
Actionable steps for fans and creators
If you want to dive deeper into this era of his life, there are things you can actually do rather than just reading about it.
- Listen to the "JuiceTheKidd" archives. Search SoundCloud for his earliest uploads. You can hear the transition from a kid trying to sound like his idols to a young man finding his own voice.
- Watch the "Into the Abyss" documentary. It features footage and stories that touch on his upbringing and the rapid transition from his school days to superstardom.
- Study the "Lucid Dreams" sample. He sampled Sting’s "Shape of My Heart." Understanding his musical influences from high school—like his love for classic rock—helps you understand how he bridged the gap between genres.
- Support school music programs. Jarad is proof that being a "band kid" can lead to incredible things. If you have the means, donate to programs like the Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation which keeps instruments in the hands of kids who might be the next Jarad Higgins.
Jarad’s time at Homewood-Flossmoor wasn't just a footnote. It was the entire prologue. It reminds us that every legend starts somewhere ordinary. For Juice WRLD, that was a desk in a classroom in Illinois, a pair of cheap earbuds, and a mind that never stopped spinning.
Next Steps for Researching Juice WRLD's Early Life:
Check out the Homewood-Flossmoor high school official publications or alumni spotlights that occasionally feature his impact on the local community. You can also explore local Chicago journalism from 2017-2018, which documented his meteoric rise shortly after he left the halls of HF. These sources offer a more grounded look at the "hometown hero" narrative that the national media often glosses over.