When Pop Smoke came out of Brooklyn's outskirts late last year, the first thing you noticed was his rich, raspy voice. Rapping entirely in ad-libs, hooks, and one-liners ready for Instagram, he sounded like a child raised on a strict diet of Get Rich or Die Tryin ', Eventually Rich, and Newports. His production, mostly from UK drill beat wizard 808Melo, mixed grimy, fast-paced drums with vocal samples ripped from UK garage and melodies that could score an anime.
This stew of influences could only come from an artist raised on the internet, but Pop Smoke’s smooth arrogance and West Indian lingo remains distinctly Brooklyn. Now that “Welcome to the Party” is his borough's current summer anthem, he capitalizes on the momentum with his debut mixtape Meet the Woo.
Meet the Woo arrives at a pivotal moment for Brooklyn’s still-growing drill scene. Ever since 22Gz’s “Suburban” and Sheff G’s “No Suburban,” Brooklyn drill has lingered in the shadows of its Chicago and UK counterparts.
Even as 22Gz signed to Kodak Black’s Sniper Gang and Sheff G became a phenomenon in New York City high schools, the prevailing theory was that these guys would never break out of the Northeast unless they switched up their style. Meet the Woo doesn’t overthink this dilemma; it’s just Pop Smoke taking nine swings at making the hardest, dirtiest shit he possibly can.
Previous singles “Meet the Woo” and “Welcome to the Party” lead off the mixtape and set its sinister tone. Of the new tracks, “Scenario” comes closest to recreating their magic: Pop Smoke’s voice is harrowing and Marvel-supervillain worthy, the beat a haunted amusement park.
He doesn’t show a lot of lyrical creativity, but he can catch you off guard with his delivery: On “Better Have Your Gun,” he goes from ignorant bravado—“Shoot a nigga, go to jail for it/Cause I know I got the bail for it”—to demented and playful, whispering designer brands with a nightmarish echo on his voice.
His limitations as a writer are exposed on “Dior”—outside of the mesmerizing hook, which doubles as an Amiri Jeans ad, he sounds stuck, repurposing lines like “Bitch I’ma thot get me lit” and throwing in a lazy and unneccesary and homophobic one-liner.
Tracklist:
01. Pop Smoke – Invincible
02. Pop Smoke – Shake The Room feat. Quavo
03. Pop Smoke – Get Back
04. Pop Smoke – Christopher Walking
05. Pop Smoke – Foreigner feat. A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie
06. Pop Smoke – Sweetheart feat. Fivio Foreign
07. Pop Smoke – Element
08. Pop Smoke – Armed N Dangerous (Charlie Sloth Freestyle)
09. Pop Smoke – Mannequin feat. Lil Tjay
10. Pop Smoke – Dreaming
11. Pop Smoke – She Got A Thing
12. Pop Smoke – Dior (Bonus)
13. Pop Smoke – War (Bonus) feat. Lil Tjay
ALBUM: Pop Smoke – Meet The Woo 2 zip
