Review Summary: BETTER HAVE YOUR GUN
Pop Smoke was on the verge of stardom. Before his life was cut short in February of 2020, he had the drill scene on notice, more specifically New York drill. A home invasion gone wrong left us with potential that was yet to be reached….but his first mixtape
Meet the Woo gave us a glimpse into Pop Smoke’s swagger. He may have been a gang member, doing God knows what in the streets of Brooklyn before bursting onto the rap scene in 2019, but you could tell, without a doubt, that he was the biggest name in the drill scene since Chief Keef, and his debut mixtape
Meet the Woo was intended to be the first step in that journey.
The main difference between Pop Smoke and the Chicago drill scene is in his production. While Chicago drill had more bombastic production, with 808’s banging loudly, Pop Smoke opts for a more minimal, darker sound. Honestly the production here is very ambient-esque. The eerie bass bumps in the background like a horror movie as Pop Smoke’s extremely deep voice flows overtop. For being only 18 years old at the time of release, you’d think Pop was in his 40s and well seasoned. Obviously influenced by artists such as Chief Keef, Pop added his own flare to the drill scene. The minimal yet extremely eerie beats make you feel as if you’re on a hit at 4AM in a back alley in Brooklyn. It makes you feel as if you always have to look over your back as if an opp is tailing you, trying to catch you slipping so they can put a bullet between your eyes. May sound extreme, but that is exactly the sound Pop Smoke is going for.
His flow is very obviously more aged than the person that it is coming from. Only 18 at the time of release, Pop Smoke sounds and acts way more mature and seasoned than anyone would expect. Take a track like Better Have Your Gun where Pop warns “shoot a nigga go to jail for it, cause I know I got the bail for it”. Or a track like Hawk Em, a track that gets right to the point. Letting his opps know he isn’t ***ing around with lines likes “big .38 gon’ hawk em, hit em up if his team lurkin’, I bet I send em to Heaven, I got some black ops too, I make an action movie”. Pop’s mature yet gruff flow overtop of these authentic street beats fits like a glove.
It really is a shame that Pop Smoke got killed over a bit of jewelry. It wasn’t gang violence that killed him, which is a rarity in drill music. Usually it’s a rival gang member or a jealous friend that takes out drill rappers. In Pop’s case, he just got unlucky. As his music would indicate, he fought and ended up paying the ultimate price. Either way, he left behind some of the best drill music to ever be released. He took the simple yet authentically scary production of UK drill and added his New York flare to it, his low pitched flow and made one of the best mixtapes of the 2010s. At only 27 minutes long,
Meet the Woo is extremely hard hitting, but also brings forth the question of what would have been if he hadn’t been killed far before his time. Pop Smoke made a huge impact which, in reality, was less than a year of stardom. We will never know how far he would’ve gone, but
Meet the Woo gives us a timeless piece of music that fans can keep coming back to again and again.
