Pop Smoke’s Legacy and the Sound of Brooklyn Drill

The Pitchfork Review

Pitchfork

Music, Music Commentary, Music Interviews, Music History

3.3 • 844 Ratings

🗓️ 17 July 2020

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On February 19th, 2020, Pop Smoke’s life was tragically cut short, when he was shot and killed at the age of 20. At the time of his death, the rapper was a leading light of Brooklyn drill, the hyper-local scene that had quickly become the premier NYC hip-hop subgenre. With hits like “Welcome to the Party” and “Dior,” Pop had helped reinvigorate interest in New York hip-hop overall. His posthumous album Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon was released on July 3. Listen to this week’s episode of The Pitchfork Review as Editor Puja Patel sits down with Pitchfork Staff Writer Alphonse Pierre and Contributing Writer Sheldon Pearce to discuss Pop Smoke’s come up and legacy, Brooklyn drill and its intersections with policing and protests, and the new album.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Pitchfork Review. I'm Puget Patel, the editor of Pitchfork, and I'm here with our
0:08.3	staff writer Alphonse Pierre. What's up? And contributing writer Sheldon Pierce. Hello, hello.
0:14.3	So today we're going to be talking about Brooklyn Drill, which is basically the biggest sound in rap right now.
0:19.7	And one of the scene's most prominent artists, Pop Smoke, who tragically passed away earlier this year.
0:25.8	We'll get into Pop Smoke's Rise and the release of his new album,
0:29.3	and we'll go a little bit deeper into the evolution of drill music and the police surveillance that went along with it.
0:35.6	There's a lot to cover here.
0:40.6	But let's start with the resurgence of pop smokes Dior,
0:44.5	which we've heard playing at protests in this really fun and joyous way.
0:47.3	Al, you wrote a great piece about the song.
0:51.3	Could you kind of explain what you've seen happen with Dior over the last few months?
0:55.2	Yeah, there's been quite a few Brooklyn Drove songs that have been playing at the protest, but the main one has been Pop Smokes Dior.
0:59.4	Dior is one of those songs that people, like, could gather around and unite around, like,
1:04.4	even if it's about him buying a bunch of clothes.
1:07.8	Even if it's about him just hanging out with his friends, it's really like deeper than that.
1:12.6	I remember when I first heard the leak of Dior, it was first called Mike Amiri.
1:18.7	Because in the course, he literally just goes, Mike Amiri and Mike Amiri, talking about like the worst fashion brand.
1:24.2	But talking about that fashion brand.
1:27.2	And it's pretty much just him repeating that over that instrumental with that voice.
1:32.0	It's just like a perfect blend.
1:33.9	That deep bass and the sort of darkness of the production sort of mixed with like this like
1:41.0	severeerness of his voice, it's like, it presses right up against you.
	...

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