THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, JUNE 28, 2020 AR 9Pop
he name-checked all the significant U.K.
acts. He knew everyone. He knew about new
guys. He knew about M24 who is literally
three months on the block. He was reciting
D-Block Europe’s lyrics. He was the missing
link between the U.K. and the U.S. And it’s all
organic. The U.K. felt him. They felt like he
was part of their artist community.
SKEPTAHe knew what he’s doing is really
London drill, a mix of grime and drill and the
bounce of dancehall. It’s a real London fu-
sion. He was just trying to be about it — re-
ally in the streets, not no big entourage. My
man came through very, very cool. It’s hard
to meet people like that, especially from
America sometimes. It’s like you guys are
the TV and the rest of the world is watching,
so it’s hard to really feel someone properly.
But when I met him in real life I was like,
“Wow, this is a real new age type of gangster
rapper.”
January and February
Pop Smoke started the year in a studio in the
Bahamas, completing his second EP, “Meet
the Woo 2,” and songs for his debut album.
VICTORHe would always be saying, “You’ve
got to take me on one of them jets, man. I
need to know what that feels like.” I said, “I’ll
rent you a studio and if you want to record,
you go record. Or if you want to just chill, you
could chill. I’ll get you a jet.” It was actually
Cristiano Ronaldo’s jet. I didn’t know whose
jet I was, I just chartered it.
CASHMONEYAP(producer)Rappers, some of
them are not that humble. Pop was very
humble. When it was time to work, nothing
could bother him. He’d stay in the studio till 6
in the morning to finish the song. Pop has all
types of records: R&B songs, drill music,
trap songs. His voice was so different, and he
could use it in so many ways.
SWIRVI thought we might have time to re-
lax, but legit, every day, straight to the stu-
dio. Everyone was locked in. Never got to the
beach, not once. He didn’t always want to
make drill. Sometimes he’d be in the mood
for Afrobeats. He liked a lot of styles of mu-
sic, so he wanted to experiment with making
other sorts of sounds just because he wanted
to hear it himself.
808MELO(producer)He knew, I need to do
something else, I need to be versatile. I’m
trying to be that superstar.
RICOBEATS(Pop Smoke’s manager)In the
studio, he needs his gummy bears, that’s a
must.
Shortly after the Bahamas trip, Pop Smoke
heard from the fashion designer Virgil Abloh,
who invited him to attend his shows at Paris
Fashion Week. Hip-hop has been knocking at
the door of high fashion for years, but Pop’s
journey to the front row was strikingly quick.
VIRGIL ABLOH(artistic director of men’s wear,
Louis Vuitton; founder, Off-White)I had this
vision before he even got to Paris of how that
trip was important. I was like, I’m shooting a
music video for you because the people need
to see you in Paris. You know, it’s like, you’re
not just rapping about it, you’re in it now.
PANDYA He was super hype on that trip.
When we landed in Paris, he made them go
to the Eiffel Tower, that’s the first thing he
wanted to see. We had lunch at the Hotel
Costes and a bunch of the PSG [Paris Saint-
Germain] players were there having lunch,
and they asked to take pictures with him. He
didn’t know who they were; I was explaining
to him, this is like the Lakers of soccer.
VICTORFor the Off-White show, he was go-
ing to wear some straight Brooklyn [exple-
tive]. I remember I was on FaceTime with
him. He was like, “Yo, this what they want
me to wear, I’m not wearing this.” I said,
“Pop, everybody’s going to take a picture of
you in that coat.”
After the Louis Vuitton show, Abloh directed a
video for Pop Smoke’s “Shake the Room,” fea-
turing Quavo.
ABLOHMost people would think that after-
ward, I’m going to have a dinner — very pri-
vate, French kids smoking, celebrating a
great show. Complete opposite. I’m shooting
the Pop Smoke video with a renegade crew,
like two blocks from my house. I feel like I’m
working with 50 Cent after the first single.
We get a Ferrari, and my friend goes, “Hey,
I’m going to do some doughnuts, but don’t
worry, I’m not going to hit you.” Quavo gets
spooked, because he has to play in the
[N.B.A.] Celebrity All-Star Game. He’s like,
“[expletive] that.” And Pop had no fear. He
just stayed there.
QUAVOMy guy almost hit me with the 488
Spider.
ABLOHWe still talk about that today. It’s
Pop’s legacy that he left on us — no fear. Like,
I didn’t make it this far to be like, “No, I don’t
need this shot.”
When Pop Smoke returned from Paris on Jan.
17, he was arrested by the F.B.I. at Kennedy
International Airport in New York for trans-
porting stolen property across state lines, in
connection with a Rolls-Royce Wraith that
was reported stolen from Los Angeles. He’d
already been arrested by the New York police
on Dec. 3 for possession of stolen property.
PANDYALiterally we get stopped at customs.
You get the printout when you go through
the machine and both of us came back with
an X on it. They come out and ask for him by
name and bring him into the back room. He
got out in the afternoon. He was supposed to
perform that night at Yams Day [a concert
honoring the hip-hop executive ASAP
Yams]. We tried to sneak into Yams Day, too.
The plan was to walk in through the front
door, and then we would somehow get back-
stage. We got through the metal detectors,
but people started to see him, and then one of
the security guards recognized him and they
radioed to somebody else and then police
came, and they were like, “Look, get out of
here. Otherwise we have to arrest you.” At
least they didn’t arrest him.
LUSTI’d be going to court with him pretty
much once or twice a week. He was fully tak-
ing it in stride. Not in like a too-cool-for-
school or a naïve way. He’s saying, “This is
what I expect, I’m blowing up — this is how
they respond.” He had a very street-smart
attitude when it comes to the police.
PETER FRANKEL(Pop Smoke’s lawyer)I think
that law enforcement believed that they had
a lawful basis to make the arrest, but it was
clear that there was other information that
they were after. They told him as much. I
think Pop was at peace with the reality that
he was always going to be interrogated and a
source of their interest, because he knew
that he would never give anyone any infor-
mation about anybody.
VICTORI told him the next six months while
the case is going on, as long as you don’t do
anything wrong — don’t smoke, don’t drink,
don’t do drugs — you’re going to be fine. The
chances of you going to jail is very low.
LUSTWe were making no more mistakes. He
didn’t need that external motivation of me
saying like, no, let me take the champagne
glass out of your hand. He very much had
self-control. He saw the bigger picture in his
career and how it wasn’t worth it.
PANDYAIn Miami during Super Bowl week-
end, I felt there was people there watching.
He had certain restrictions on his case,
where you can’t associate with certain peo-
ple or drink or drugs. I feel like it was defi-
nitely agents in those clubs, people wholooked extremely out of place. One night we
were at Booby Trap and we had some people
from the streaming company and some label
execs from Universal, not your typical crowd
at 4 a.m. And there was detectives who
looked even more out of place to me than
those guys did, you know?
The day after his airport arrest, Pop Smoke
had a meeting with someone who would alter
his perspective on his career: 50 Cent. In a
sense, he’d been leading up to this moment for
months. 50 represented, to him, the possibility
of a career without compromise.50 CENT(rapper and entrepreneur, co-execu-
tive producer of “Shoot for the Stars Aim for
the Moon”)The experience was a little
weird. Because when I first started talking to
him in the office, I was watching and he
would look down at his telephone. He was
typing at the same time. And there was a
point where I’m like, “Is he listening?” I got
up so I can kind of see what he was doing,
and when I got to the other side of the table,
he wasn’t not paying attention to me, he was
just writing what I said down. Dead serious.
VICTOR50’s talking to him about, you know:
“Do you want to be in ‘Power’? Do you want
to do movies?” Later on, 50 would tell me, he
was like studying him. Because he’s like:
“Yo, I want to know, is he mocking me? Or
does he really like me? Is that his real voice,
is this really how he acts? Or is he playing acharacter?” So through that 50 realizes, “Oh,
this kid is really like me. He’s really about
that action.” He was asking Pop questions.
Pop is answering them. And he’s like: “Bro,
you do not want to be doing that. All the
guns, you got to stop that right now. I get it.
It’s something that’s necessary because of
the life you lead and the people that’s around
you, but you, you, you can’t be doing that. Be-
cause they’re waiting for you to [expletive]
up. And your friends are not really your
friends. They’re waiting for you to [exple-
tive] up, too.” He was like, “You could either
continue down that path and there’s a high
chance that you’ll end up in jail or dead, or
you can do this.” Pop is like, “What’s this?”
He’s like: “What I got going on! I sold 30 mil-
lion records. I’m rich. I’m doing movies. I can
get anybody on the phone. I could do any-
thing. And this could be you.” After that, he
realized that he could be himself and be a
megastar.
ANGIE MARTINEZ(host, New York’s Power
105.1)50 felt like he saw something in him
that reminded him of himself — he told me
that.
VICTORHe’d be with me and it’d be all good
and he’d go back to the hood, because he
loved the hood. It wasn’t until I took him to go
see 50 that he completely did a 360.In February, Pop Smoke released “Meet the
Woo 2.” The drill scene in which he’d found his
first footing was still active, with a few other
rappers signed to major label deals, but he
was expanding his sonic approach beyond
that sound into more radio-familiar styles.PANDYAWhen you have something that’s
hot, your phone is ringing off the hook, and
any phone call you make just gets picked up
first ring. Any crazy idea that Steven had it
was like, “All right, cool, we can do it.”
MARTINEZI really hadn’t been doing any in-
terviews yet [after recovering from a car
crash]. When they asked me about Pop, it
just felt right. He showed up with these in-
credible cookies and flowers, which is so
sweet. We did this great interview, and then
my favorite part was that he stayed in the
studio with me, he was playing me new mu-
sic. He played me a girl song. It reminded me
of this old Lost Boyz song, “Renee.” He didn’t
know it. I gave him homework.
PANDYAWe had a listening party in Brook-
lyn, and that was like a tense night, dealing
with the police and making sure that went
off without a hitch. When that was success-
ful, that was like a sigh of relief.
QUAVOHis album release party, I think the
police tried to shut it down. I still pulled up
— I showed up even when everybody was
out of the building. I was the last person to
walk in, just to let him know I was there.
50 CENTThe first two tapes versus this al-
bum? You’re going to see that we really just
lost something big. He said to me he wanted
to take his mother to an award show. I
would like to be able to do that.
RICOBEATSHe told me he’s going to start
telling kids, don’t go the gang route. He was
trying to be a better person. In the last two
months, he was completely changing. In the
environment he was in and the things that
he went through, it was hard for him to
show that big heart that he had. He always
had to be on defense. That really wasn’t
what he wanted to be every day.
SKEPTAHe’s really missed. That one hit
London hard. It’s the first time we’ve em-
braced someone, and they’ve embraced us
the same — not for no clout, it was real.
50 CENTWhat you see when you talk to me
is what happens when you get rich. What
happened to Pop is what happens when you
die trying.
VICTORIt’s been stressful but also kind of a
relief to be working on finishing the album.
Because once the record is out, that means
he’s really gone.NICOLE RIVELLI/FOCUS FEATURESSHAUN LLEWELLYNTop, in his first onscreen
role, Pop Smoke, center,
starred in the film
“Boogie” in fall 2019. He
was “an old soul” who
displayed emotional
depth in his work, said
the film’s director, Eddie
Huang. Above is Pop
Smoke at the 2019
Rolling Loud hip-hop
festival in Los Angeles.