American rapper Juice WRLD, who had just completed a headlining tour of Australia just over a week ago, died on Sunday after a medical emergency at Chicago's Midway International Airport.
Juice WRLD was named top new artist at the 2019 Billboard Music Awards in May.
The rapper, whose legal name was Jarad A. Higgins, was 21. Authorities have not released details about his cause of death.
He was pronounced dead at a hospital around 3:15 a.m. and taken to the Cook County medical examiner's office several hours later, according to office spokeswoman Natalia Derevyanny, who said an autopsy would take place Monday.
Chicago police launched a death investigation after a 21-year-old male experiencing a "medical emergency" was transported from Midway to an area hospital. Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford said the man experienced cardiac arrest and was taken to a hospital from a small hangar at Midway, away from the main terminal, where private planes land.
The artist, who was named top new artist at the 2019 Billboard Music Awards in May, lived in the Chicago suburb of Homewood where he stood out as a musician early on. He had turned 21 only days before his death, and was only two years out of high school.
He had enjoyed a rapid ascension since he first began posting his songs to SoundCloud as a teenager in 2015, working in a style that blended elements of emo and rock with hip-hop.
His independently-released 2017 track Lucid Dreams, which heavily samples Sting's 1993 song Shape of My Heart, proved to be a career-maker. It was a six-times platinum success and reached No. 2 on Billboard's all-genre Hot 100 chart, and topped Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and Hot Rap Songs charts.
"I was very impressed by what he put on top of (my version)," Sting told The Associated Press this year. "It's a really good song."
His major-label debut album Goodbye & Good Riddance, released in May 2018, was a platinum success. It featured the hit All Girls Are the Same, which gained platinum status, alongside seven more platinum hits including Armed & Dangerous, Robbery, Fine China and Legends, which features the lyrics: "What's the 27 Club?/We ain't making it past 21."
He's had 10 songs reach gold status and also had success with 2018's Wrld on Drugs, a collaborative album with rapper-singer-producer Future. Last year he also released an EP dedicated to late fellow SoundCloud rappers XXXTentacion and Lil Peep, titled Too Soon.
His second album, Death Race for Love, debuted on top of the Billboard charts this year and his most recent single, Bandit with YoungBoy Never Broke Again, reached the Top 10 of the pop charts in October.
"Juice made a profound impact on the world in such a short period of time," said a statement from his label, Interscope Geffen A&M Records. "He was a gentle soul, whose creativity knew no bounds, an exceptional human being and artist who loved and cared for his fans above everything else. To lose someone so kind and so close to our hearts is devastating."
The rapper had toured Australia twice in the past year, including a slot at the Falls Festival and shows at Sydney's Enmore Theatre and Melbourne's The Forum in January. Proving his rapid rise, he returned to Australia just last month for bigger performances at Sydney's Hordern Pavilion and Melbourne's Festival Hall.
AP, with staff writers