A 15-year-old boy, the youngest of the four intruders, shot Pop Smoke three times in the chest with a Beretta M9 after fighting with him. Four hooded men, one of whom was wearing a ski mask and carrying a handgun, broke into the house Pop Smoke was renting. The rapper was killed at the age of 20 during an attempted home invasion. On February 19, 2020, less than a year after signing his record deal, Pop Smoke was renting an Airbnb owned by The Real Housewives star Teddi Mellencamp and her husband, Edwin Arroyave, in Hollywood Hills, California. After Pop Smoke would establish himself as the "leader" of the subgenre that was growing in New York City, he would then release a debut album that showcased his melodic side with bigger, more mainstream songs like "Something Special".
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The record executive devised a strategy in which Pop Smoke would go on to create a series of mixtapes devoted only to Brooklyn drill, which would be "raw, gritty street rap with bass-heavy production". Victor knew that many of rap's most popular musicians had been responsible for pushing new sounds into the mainstream because he worked closely with American rapper Kanye West as the chief operating officer of his record label GOOD Music at the time. To demonstrate his abilities, Pop Smoke played Victor an unreleased song called "Something Special" and a track called " What You Know Bout Love" the latter made a deep impact on Victor Victor executives, persuading them Pop Smoke was more than "just another drill rapper from Brooklyn". After signing to Victor's label Victor Victor Worldwide and Republic Records, Pop Smoke told Victor in addition to rapping, he had experience as a singer, having previously sung for services at a church. The album won Top Billboard 200 Album and Top Rap Album at the 2021 Billboard Music Awards.Īmerican record producer Rico Beats introduced rapper Pop Smoke to record executive Steven Victor in April 2019. It appeared on several publications' lists of the best albums of 2020, including being placed in the top-10 by Billboard, Complex, The New York Times, The Ringer, and NPR. Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon received mostly positive reviews from music critics upon release and multiple publications praised the production. The album also topped the US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums for 19 non-consecutive weeks and Top Rap Albums chart for 20 non-consecutive weeks, making it the longest-running number-one record on the latter chart. With Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon spending 34 weeks in the top five of the Billboard 200, it became the fourth album in the 21st century to spend so many weeks in the top five.
The album spent two non-consecutive weeks atop the Billboard 200 and received a double platinum certification. All 19 tracks on the standard album also charted on the Billboard Hot 100 following its first week of release, which gave the late rapper the most simultaneous entries on the Hot 100 posthumously. Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon was a commercial success, debuting at number one on the US Billboard 200 and giving Pop Smoke his first US number-one hit. Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon was supported by six singles, including US Billboard Hot 100 top-20 hits " The Woo", " Mood Swings", " For the Night", and " What You Know Bout Love". Guest appearances on the album include Quavo, Lil Baby, DaBaby, Swae Lee, Future, Roddy Ricch, Tyga, Karol G, and Lil Tjay, among others. Before his death, Pop Smoke had begun to set up the Shoot for the Stars Foundation to helps youth achieve their goals while living and growing up in difficult circumstances, providing access to technology and other resources.
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Jess Jackson mastered and sequenced Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon and reworked the tracks to get the professional sound of a big recording studio. After the completion, 50 Cent helped fulfill Pop Smoke's wish to take his mother to an awards show. 50 Cent finished the album for Pop Smoke by calling the featured artists and taking care of the deadlines. It is a drill, trap, and R&B record.Īmerican rapper 50 Cent executive-produced Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon following the murder of Pop Smoke during a home invasion on February 19, 2020. It was released on July 3, 2020, by Victor Victor Worldwide and Republic Records, and a deluxe edition of the album that includes fifteen additional tracks-including remixes of three songs from the original-was released on July 20 that year, a date that would have been Pop Smoke's 21st birthday. Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon is the posthumously released debut studio album of American rapper Pop Smoke.