How Pop Smoke Made UK Drill Music an International Movement
Looking at how Pop Smoke revolutionised rap music in less than a year.
Pop Smoke in September 2019. Image from the New York Times.
Bashar Jackson/Pop Smoke is the human embodiment of receiving your flowers long after you can smell them.
Pop Smoke’s career was barely a year old when he was ultimately assassinated in a home invasion back in February.
Along with COVID-19, Kobe Bryant’s death and systemic racism, Pop Smoke’s death was another mark on 2020s resume.
One silver lining was Pop Smoke’s musical footprint he left in such a short amount of time. Musically, Pop Smoke wasn’t your average drill or trap rapper. Pop Smoke was influenced by the UK drill scene as well as 2000s gangster rap.
Specifically, Pop Smoke’s early music and inspiration were thanks in part to 50 Cent. 50 took Pop Smoke under his wing with open arms and sought to executive produce Pop Smoke’s album in the wake of his death.
50 Cent (left) and Pop Smoke (right)
On Pop Smoke’s breakthrough single ‘Welcome to the Party’ he collaborated with UK producer 808Melo. Pop Smoke helped create a cultural bridge between British and American rap music that was incredibly rare.
Pop Smoke’s music can be described as brash, aggressive and chaotic. His music was the songs that wouldn’t feel out of place in a mosh pit or nightclub.
Pop Smoke represented a tough-as-nails hardcore image that echoed the sentiment of rappers from the past. Pop Smoke’s appeal was although he paid homage to the rap that inspired him, he always found a way to make it new or innovative.
In his career, Pop Smoke released three projects; the mixtapes ‘Meet the Woo’ in July 2019, its sequel in February 2020 and finally his album ‘Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon’ this July.
Posthumous albums are often met with disgust or pushback from fans. In worst-case scenarios like XXXTENTACION or Tupac, they often resemble Frankenstein’s monster cash grabs. Great posthumous albums like Mac Miller’s ‘Circles’ are rare.
A majority of fans rejoiced when Pop Smoke’s album sounded like a finished and cohesive body of work. The LP was more expansive than his prior work with R&B slow jams like ‘Something Special’, trap and drill bangers like ‘Make It Rain’ with Rowdy Rebel.
Pop Smoke in February 2020.
We truly lost a star in the making when Pop Smoke passed at 20 years old. RIP Woo.
Listen to Pop Smoke on Spotify and Apple Music here.
