Shoot For The Stars Aim For The Moon - Pop Smoke: Review
was an up and coming rapper from New York who became one of the most prominent voices of the cities drill scene off of his hit song Welcome To The Party last year. Pop Smoke was tragically murdered in February of this year, a crime for which arrests were just made this week. Shoot For The Stars is his posthumous debut album which was unfinished at the time of his death and was completed under the guise of executive producer 50 Cent. The record also attracted some controversy directed at designer Virgil Abloh for his original album cover design, which was changed before the records release.
Review By Lavender:
Just typing the words posthumous debut album is something I find difficult, especially in the case of an artist like Pop Smoke who had so much creative and artistic potential ahead of him. While I have never outright loved any of his music he was carving out a unique lane for himself with unmistakable vocals and a thirst to push further beyond the mundane sound of so much contemporary hip hop. So even as I find myself not loving a whole lot on this record, the moments that do grab me are bittersweet.
Creature is a big highlight and I respect that Swae Lee went out of his way to deliver one of his best and most fiery features in a long time because the result a great pairing alongside another explosive performance from Pop Smoke that makes for a big highlight. Make It Rain is the lead single and I quite like the song honestly it's a banger with a glittery but still hard-hitting beat. Pop Smoke's uptempo delivery never falters and the track is punctuated by a prison feature from Rowdy Rebel a name I haven't heard since the Bobby Shmurda days. The Woo is another decent track built around a short sung hook from Pop Smoke. Roddy Rich is on the track because of course he is although this feature is a little bit better than the last few times I've heard him. 50 Cent is really the highlight of the song and the bars he fires off in his classic delivery make the track worth listening to all on their own. A couple more highlights show up at the end of the record. Diana is the best of the records R&B flavored songs and despite King Combs trying his best to sound like Jaden Smith in a feature I enjoy it. Finally Got It On Me has some of the best verses on the entire record and a solid hook to pair for a late record highlight that is so rare on contemporary rap albums.
The features on the record aren't as bad as some posthumous rap records but it is very clear when the guest artists are used as supplement for an unfinished track. The opener Aim For The Moon is clearly more finished than the rest with a fusion beat of drill and trap. Quavo has a solid feature on the back end that helps add a little bit more depth to the track. Snitching is an example of this taken to the extreme with a song that drags on comfortably past the point where it stops being interesting. Quavo opens up the song with two verses and a hook that isn't terrible but gets old. Even Pop Smoke and Future on the second half of the track aren't bad but with everyone's samey rapping not providing much of any relief this is one of the most patience testing cuts. West Coast Shit has a slick Mustard beat and a tight hook from Pop Smoke, everything is really set up well for the track except that the first verse goes to Tyga for some reason. The rest of the track is honestly pretty good so I'm not sure whose idea it was to shoot the song down before it ever had a chance.
There are some decent tracks here that are nice while they're on like Yea Yea and Enjoy Yourself. There are also a couple of cuts here where the producers kind of crush a good Pop Smoke performance. 44 Bulldog is a moody and confrontational banger that sees Pop going in hard as fuck. The only problem is that the entire track from start to finish is laced with insanely annoying vocal samples that are way too high up in the mix and make no attempt to work alongside the tracks flow. Gangstas is even worse where the beat itself completely dominates a more lowkey Pop Smoke performance taking over the track with an instrumental that is not that interesting.
The parts of the record that are the most intolerable are when it transitions into R&B flavored work, but I will try to not spend much time on it. For The Night is a messy track which features an annoying Lil Baby feature and an incredibly out of place DaBaby feature. Mood Swings is another misguided cut with some eye roll inducing lyrics and a completely intolerable Lil Tjay feature. Something Special and particularly What You Know Bout Love are just as bad. Not that I don't think Pop Smoke couldn't have ever released some good R&B cuts if he was able to continue working and improving his sound, but the fact that these songs were released at all raises even more red flags for me about how the record has been handled.
Shoot For The Stars Aim For The Moon is far more commercial than anything Pop Smoke had released before and while I think he was complicit in at least some of this, the unnecessary features, unfinished songs and underwhelming R&B flavored cuts raise the same kinds of questions that always come up with these posthumous rap records. While Pop Smoke's passing is a tragedy and the lost of creative potential was vast I just don't enjoy this thing and when I get the urge to hear Pop Smoke's unique voice and style again in the future I will return to his mixtape catalog before most of the songs here. 4.5/10
Album Cover Review By Tyler Judson:
This over has been on a rollercoaster, with the original cover being a horrible design by Virgil Abloh. After the public backlash Pop Smoke's label decided to redo the cover with artwork from Ryder Ripps who has worked with other Pop Smoke projects as well as Kanye West and Grimes. I had high hopes for the new cover and I hate to say that I favor Virgil's version. While this cover is simple it lacks any interest and given the circumstances ultimately screams as a posthumous record, which could be taken as a good or bad thing but I'm going to go with bad. This is't a celebration of his work but instead a lackluster job of a design. I expected much more after the uproar on social media and I'm sure I'm not the only one disappointed. 3/10
For more hip hop check out my review of Gunna's Wunna here
