Album of the Year Writeup #27:Pop Smoke - Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon - HipHop

Album of the Year Writeup #27:Pop Smoke - Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon
Last.fm Thread: What Have You Been Listening to This Week? - January 20th, 2021
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Album of the Year Writeup #27:Pop Smoke - Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon

Posted: 20 Jan 2021 05:06 AM PST

Artist: Pop Smoke

Album: Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon

Release Date: July 3rd, 2020

Listen:

YouTube

Spotify

Apple Music

Intro

The Brooklyn-born rapper, by birth name Bashar Barakah Jackson was the leader of a new wave of hip-hop on the East Coast, called Brooklyn-Drill. Most notably, this style is similar to the Chicago drill, but with more minimal and aggressive instrumentation. Pop Smoke famously collaborated with many UK drill producers and artists, combining the American rap culture with UK grime/drill culture and creating a spectacular and unique mix of hip-hop music.

Pop was raised in Canarsie, a neighborhood rich with Caribbean culture. His first video was basically filmed in a local jerk chicken spot with a few of his friends.

His first two mixtapes feature incredible production chops from 808Melo, Axl, Juju on Da Beat and Yoz Beats which created a distinctive sound to Pop Smokes unique voice. His biggest hit, Dior released in 2019 is by far the best example of what Pop Smoke is about. This song is a combination of different sub-genres of hip hop, predating to even gangsta rap when it was THE genre in New York. Pop managed to pull it off so effortlessly with a twist of his own style and uniqueness.

A lot of fans and first-time listeners managed to notice Pop's similarities with 50 Cent. The charisma that Pop Smoke had at such an early age is thus of a rapper destined to reach the super-star level. When it came to music, Pop could switch from a goofy, cocky dude with a few dance moves up his sleeve to an absolute K9 dog on the mic suddenly becoming dead-pan serious. 50 Cent examples did not come out of anywhere, the 2 were in a good relationship, and 50 Cent was somewhat of a mentor to Pop Smoke during his short-lived career.

Pop Smoke died aged 20 on February 19, 2020, after being shot twice in the chest during a home invasion in Hollywood Hills, California. On July 3rd, his first official and Posthumous album, Shoot For The Stars Aim For The Moon was released.

It is incredible to think that his whole career basically lasted for one year. The amount of depth and maturity a 20-year-old showed is incredible. When I was younger, guys like Tupac or Biggie seemed years ahead of their peers, with somewhat hood-preachy lyrics, and even their experiences were so much more than what an average 20-year old goes through today. But Pop Smoke seems to have been even more mature at that age than any rapper I have known or listened to up to this point.

Album review

The album features many A-List rappers, who have collaborated with Pop Smoke while he was still alive, and a few who were added later on, quite possibly to make his one and the only official album as big and radio-friendly as possible without losing the Pop Smoke vibe.

This album is perhaps the best-case example of what the future of Pop Smoke would have been, but the album simply came a bit too early. The album is more R&B leaning but still brings the heavy-hitting Drill sound that the previous mixtapes had. The album proves that the comparison to 50 Cent was indeed correct and even more than we thought before. The raw charisma, hunger, and singing are what made many of the songs become popular and charting across the world. The Woo dance also became some-what viral and a signature of Pop. Sadly, Pop Smoke was not here to receive his flowers for the success he had achieved, but for me and my close circle of friends as well as many people worldwide, this album was breath of fresh air in the trap-infused rap music genre during one of the toughest periods of our lives. Pop Smoke came in as an authentic, unique young rapper, who may not have the best bars or level of lyricism, but he managed to overthrow all that with his impeccable delivery, flow, and energy.

Favorite song analysis.

The Deluxe version of the album is 34 songs long, and would simply take too much time to review all of them, so I would rather review my favorite tracks of this album, and even cut it down to my absolute favorite ones since almost the whole album is in my daily playlist already.

44 BullDog – the 3rd track on the album is a good example of Pop Smoke's initial style, and what Brooklyn Drill that he was the frontman of, was about. Heavy-hitting bars, perhaps not the most lyrically dense, but the great production and flow is what outshines the weak points of the style itself, which in my opinion really has none. Even on this song, Pop manages to bring some good lyrics in.
Gangstas – this is what 50 Cent in our era would sound like, and this is what Pop Smoke brought to the table when we call him the King of NY Drill. The beat is reminiscent of iconic West Coast production with some great snares.
Snitching feat. Quavo and Future – the trap legends of our era join forces with Pop Smoke on this joint, where they all bring some good energy. Perhaps not the best feature from Future himself, but the Quavo hook is really nothing special or unique at this point in his career, but it's good enough not to ruin the song. I mean this is what we all kind of expect them to sound like. I think all of them bring in some great energy, charisma and ride the beat well. I think that many songs on the album and in Pop Smokes discography feature the re-use of some lines and bars, notably on this song he uses " Pull up with Mary got nines attached", which was used in Get Back on Meet The Woo 2.
The Woo Feat 50 Cent and Roddy Ricch. Before the release of the album 50 Cent has mentioned that they had quite a few songs with Pop, but since after the death of Pop Smoke 50 Cent decided to take the executive producer spot on this album, he did not want to over 50 Cent the album, and I think it was a good choice. Perhaps one more song would have done the trick since now the album is over-Quavo'd. This song is such a vibe. All three artists bring the best of them. Probably the best 50 Cent verse in ages, he manages to fit in beside the youngsters so well and bring a piece of old 50 Cent that was on top of the world. I wish there was a way to pass the torch to Pop Smoke to continue with this style of music for decades to come, but hip-hop got robbed of great talent. Pop Smoke's candy shop line is a homage to 50 Cent, and seems like he really was looking up to him, and they had a decent relationship before his passing.
Enjoy Yourself. This is such a great track, it reminds me of all the old Ja Rule tracks and 50s R&B tracks in the 50s. This is an example that Pop's reach was much further than just Hip Hop or Drill.
Got It On Me. This is a homage to Many Men by 50 Cent yet in the style of Pop Smoke. The aggressiveness of this song and the production is probably peak Brooklyn Drill on the album. Pop Smoke rides the song very well.
Hotel Lobby (from Deluxe edition) I also love this song for it's an homage to 50 Cent. Pop Smoke was on the route to becoming so great and I think he had a higher range than 50 Cent in terms of staying on top for a longer time.

The rest of the album has some great features, a good mix of R&B and singing, some mediocre songs that are definitely filler and skippable, but in retrospect, the project did a favor to the fans and Pop himself. This album propelled him to the top of the list, and it's such a huge shame he was not there to see this. Brooklyn Drill lost the frontman of the genre and will never recover nor be what it could have been if Pop was alive, the same way Emo-Rap died with Lil Peep and furthermore with Juice WRLD. The production was a bit more experimental and different, with quite a few new collaborators. A few beats from WondaGurl, Mike Dean, and Buddah Bless There are some great tracks on the Deluxe version, but I think it would have been better to release it at the end of the year as a separate mixtape or keep it for the future. There are some great unreleased songs out there on YouTube that hopefully will see the light of day (most likely it will since let's face it, posthumous albums are all mostly cash-grabs)

Conclusion

In my opinion, the main weak point with Pop's music is the fact that he has recycled quite a few lines trough his short discography, and when you spend a lot of time listening to his music, you start noticing those bars more often, in different songs. But when you think about the fact that the kid's first song was MPR/GQ and he already was incredible, makes his career truly a miracle with how fast he blew up with such unique sounding music. He had a decent work ethic, left us quite a few great features and unreleased tracks, but at most, there's probably one or two mixtapes worth of music with a few great songs in there that are somewhat unique, and perhaps a bunch of features that artists are sitting on.

Is this album worth the AOTY title in terms of ALL the releases dropped this year? I think no, but it takes the spot of one of my favorite ones, and definitely a great project in retrospect of how posthumous projects are handled. Seems that we are receiving more and more thoughtout projects. The album was polished, filled with features and great production, but it lacked the soul and the authenticity of that now-classic Meet The Woo sounds, that was more raw and aggressive, not meant for the radio, but which somehow find a place alongside huge names like Lil Baby, Future or Drake.

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Last.fm Thread: What Have You Been Listening to This Week? - January 20th, 2021

Posted: 20 Jan 2021 02:29 PM PST

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