Brooklyn native Pop Smoke’s estate has dropped his long awaited second posthumous album Faith through Republic Records. After Pop Smoke’s unfortunate death due to a fatal shooting in February of 2020, he has skyrocketed into stardom as his previous posthumous album Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon debuted at the top of the Billboard Hot 100. The project also includes many chart topping singles such as For the Night and What You Know Bout Love.
Due to this you can safely say that audiences had high hopes for this project. You can also largely attribute this hype due to the promotion, whether it be done through Pop Smoke’s manager Steven Victor releasing a star studded tracklist or fans finding QR codes around New York revealing fire snippets.
I personally didn’t anticipate this record so much. This is largely due to posthumous records inherently being somewhat exploitative, as well as the botching of previous posthumous records in recent rap history, but I am happy to say that I was humbly surprised by it’s quality.
The featured appearances on this album are some of the biggest in music at the moment. Whether the collaborators be Kanye West or Dua Lipa, they all come together to accentuate Pop Smoke’s eclectic range of abilities in a way that feels right.
Below are my top five tracks from Pop Smoke’s Faith !
Tell The Vision (feat. Kanye West & Pusha T)
This track has some out of this world production and sampling. The lineup of seasoned producers on this track did a great job of perpetuating Pop Smoke’s bread and butter New York drill while infusing it with samples you would hear off Jesus is King.
Manslaughter (feat. Rick Ross & The-Dream)
The production on this track is very grandiose, something Rick Ross always is able to perform immaculately on. Pop Smoke’s vocals on this track are very smooth as well, and remind me of a lot of the hits off his previous record.
30 (feat. Bizzy Banks)
While this track feels more like Bizzy Banks featuring Pop Smoke, I cannot deny how much chemistry the two of them have. I only have vaguely heard Bizzy Bank’s music before this project, but he definitely talks his shit on this track. The New York drill is heavy on this one.
Demeanor (feat. Dua Lipa)
I was admittedly a little hesitant going into this one as each of these two artists have vastly different native sounds, but this track is actually a really fun and well done track. Not much to say about this track other than it being just a really fun pop track.
Merci Beaucoup
This track is a great closing track to the album, in fact the title translates to “thank you so much” in French. The production is very ethereal and crisp. The track also features this small outro that features Pop Smoke spitting some very inspirational advice and words of wisdom for his fans; that holds a lot of weight in my opinion.
Rest in Peace Pop Smoke, go check out his second posthumous record Faith below!
