Roddy Ricch, 50 Cent and DaBaby join Pop Smoke, the inventive late Brooklyn rapper, on his posthumous full-length debut. Read Variety_Music’s review
had the sort of pointed signatures that made him unique and immensely sellable. Bugged-out, drill-inspired cuts such as 2019’s “Welcome to the Party” and “Dior” – the latter a taut and tension-filled anthem of NYC’s BLM protests this summer – were as raucous and sinister as anything Wu-Tang Clan ever committed to vinyl.
Pop Smoke was well on his way to becoming 2020’s premier haunted-house hit-maker when he was shot dead in February in what looked like a robbery at his rental property in Los Angeles. He was 20 years old. Happening as it did right before COVID-19 and that city’s ongoing BLM anti-police protests, Pop’s murder still has no answers or suspects.
Besides, there’s plenty of room for pure trap here. The creeping “Creature,” with Swae Lee, and “Hotel Lobby” are good examples of drill’s death disco vibe. While the singed synth tones of “44 Bulldog” give Smoke a chance to cough and rhyme at the same time to what sounds like a John Carpenter cinema-scape, the piano lead-in to “Gangsters” is as haunting as its lyrics.
Woo is a big thing for Smoke. His EPs of 2019 and 2020 were named “Meet the Woo.” It’s used as punctuation throughout so many of his tracks, like James Brown’s “Good God” or Michael Jackson’s “Shamon.” With that, “The Woo,” with pals 50 Cent and Roddy Ricch, and a surprisingly gentle 808Melo production, is another oddity.
The album moves into a sleepy lull with so-so tracks such as “West Coast S—“ and “Make it Rain,” but luckily bounces back in time for the triple threat finale of previously-released anthem “Dior” , the bell-bonging “Got It On Me,” and the ambient “Tunnel Vision .” While the latter seems pasted together with clips of Pop Smoke interviews by track’s end, the grand “Got It On Me” is Smoke at his future-forward clearest.
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