Pop Smoke fans know the difference between a Pop Smoke album produced when he was alive, versus his posthumous albums. The difference is clear, and it’s all in the creative vision and execution.
Bashar Barakah Jackson, also known by the moniker, Pop Smoke, was only 19-years-old when his breakthrough record “Welcome To The Party” hit the streets in 2019. It took New York – and the world – by storm, quickly becoming the anthem of summer. Everyone had the same question on their minds: who is this kid with this thunderous voice and why does it sound so good?
His rise to fame was quick, and his influence spanned beyond the city’s streets. Drill music had been on the rise for years before the song was released, but there was something so raw and distinctive about the Canarsie native’s music, and his gravelly, magnetic voice added to his allure. Many have credited him with breaking NYC drill into the “mainstream,”, especially at a time when melodic rap dominated the rap scene.
His follow-up record, “Dior” off his debut mixtape Meet The Woo was just as important. With Meet The Woo, he solidified that he was here to stay (or so we thought). He continued to release bangers that took over cars, clubs, and homes across the world. In a year, working alongside UK producer 808Melo, Pop Smoke pioneered the proliferation of drill music internationally – but that wasn’t all he aspired to do. He wanted to show that he wasn’t one-note as some people often described him, but he also had a softer side.
Once he’d left his mark on the drill music scene, Pop Smoke set his sights on a new horizon – versatility. He’d found himself seated at the table working with some of the biggest names in Hip Hop like Travis Scott, Meek Mill, 50 Cent, and Quavo, and he wanted to make history. During interviews before he passed, he often teased the forthcoming music that he believed would broaden his repertoire and bring something different from what fans had been used to.
But in 2020, his time was cut short when he was killed in a home invasion in Los Angeles, less than two weeks after the release of his second mixtape Meet The Woo 2. It became his label's job to carry out what he had aspired to do. The album offered the music industry a chance at redemption – his expeditious rise to fame and untimely passing left a gap in the drill scene that only he could fill. Beyond that, Pop Smoke had only just begun. In a year he had become one of the most influential and ubiquitous rappers in the country. Would they preserve his legacy? How could they engineer his aspirations for his music without him?
Rightfully, 50 Cent was recruited as the executive producer for his first album Shoot For The Stars Aim For The Moon which was released posthumously. The album was good. They managed to encapsulate his essence and versatility but packed it with flashy features and radio-friendly songs. As a fan, I felt it wasn’t one of those posthumous albums that didn’t need to be released – I reveled in each song, delighting at the chance to hear what felt like unreleased Pop Smoke. He had been alluding to new music for months, music that would open up his softer side to the world, and in a sense, Shoot For The Stars Aim For The Moon did that. But still, something was missing.
The album was commercially successful, reaching number one in many countries, so his label was presumably satisfied, but were his fans? Pop Smoke was illustriously dedicated to his vision. It was always clear that he was an artist who cared about executing his vision meticulously. The skillful execution of his creative vision was embedded in his ethos as an artist, but in his death, who was left to carry it on?
When his second posthumous tape Faith was released, it became obvious that his label had no intention of seeing it through. Rather, they strung together his remaining vocals, with some reused vocals from his previous album, to produce a less than mediocre project. From the features to the beat choices (Pop Smoke on a pop song with Dua Lipa – I mean?) to the falsely engineered and reconstructed lyrics – you can feel that Pop Smoke’s essence wasn’t present. It might as well have been an AI bot whose sole purpose was to create commercially satisfactory music, regardless of whether it was actually good.
I imagine the questions floating around the conference room when they were producing the album were: What big names can we get on this? How can we make Pop Smoke pop? What sounds good on the radio? And of course, how much money can we milk him for?
They turned a legend into a cash cow overnight. The album was unnecessary and didn’t need to be released, or at least like that. If Pop Smoke was alive, one can assume that he wouldn’t have produced that – I doubt he would’ve hopped on some of those beats. So what then, was the point of the album? If not to carry on his legacy, why release it? Why not leave us with Shoot For The Stars Aim For The Moon and let him rest in peace? Why tarnish his legacy with sub-par, insincere music? The last track on Faith, “Merci Beaucoup” features clippings from his interview, where he urged, “Don’t let anybody get in between you and your creation, if you want something it gotta be that.” Yet, what did his label do?
Pop Smoke stood for something and that was his legacy. Some say it’s naïve to believe that a record label would have their artist’s best interest at heart, but reshaping their sound based on what is commercially satisfactory and removing the intrinsic quality that makes the music itself special and distinct – that is a problem. Because if record labels only need your vocals, then what is the point of the artist if they engineer your creation into something digestible for radio play?
It’s easy to believe that the artist is necessary to the production of a creative body of work, but evidently, the artist is becoming less and less relevant in the equation. From royalty rates to unrelenting contracts, Record labels are doing their best to make the most profit, while, in most situations, the artist loses out in one way or another.
Yes, it’s a business, but music is art. Technological advances and the use of AI to revive deceased artists for tours is more proof of the industry’s attempt to stray away from the importance of the artist themselves. If labels could own (which they do) an artist’s vocals and do whatever they want with it – are you telling me that their only objective would be to make the most amount of money, with no care for the quality and legacy behind the music itself?
Of course, the answer is a big fat yes, because it happens all the time. The only difference is that when an artist dies, they have free reign to do whatever they want without the actual person objecting. Don’t get me wrong, this is not an “I hate labels, fuck the industry” piece, but then again, how can it not be? Without the artist, where would the labels be? Now, one might respond and say, well they have AI artists now and they can write songs, make beats and perform live, AND go on tour in multiple locations without even needing to move – yes, that is possible but again I demur, music is art, the AI bots can sit this one out.
Labels have singlehandedly derailed the music industry off course with their plight for monetary gain – and it shows. The industry is oversaturated with (excuse my french) shitty music. While the quality of music has simultaneously ameliorated and deteriorated. But the big thing is, it’s not just the music industry.
It’s almost every industry at large today. Money and prominence have become the sole objective behind many industries, with quality and content falling far behind. Take the sciences for example, right now, psychology (amongst other sciences) is facing a crisis. People are p-hacking and HARKing (fabricating) data to produce significant results so they can get their studies published and secure tenure teaching positions, amongst other things (TED Talks, book deals, and the like).
People don’t care about quality, the vision, or the truth, because it doesn’t pay the bills. No one cares if you conducted a study and the results weren’t significant. So, since a lot of psychologists who are actually dedicated to the truth are broke, others have decided to change their tactics. Now, it’s about what can I do to profit the most? So it’s not just arts – it’s the sciences too!
In the plight for material gain, we’ve lost sight of one of the most important qualities creations should possess – authenticity. What legacy is our generation really going to leave behind? TikTok trends and falsified studies? At the end of the day, when we die, creations will reflect our epoch, and from the sciences to music –if it’s all spurious and created for financial gain alone, who suffers, if not us?
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