POP SMOKE WOULD HAVE TURNED 27 THIS YEAR

Andre Michael Loblack, a producer from Ilford in East London working under the name 808Melo, produced most of the nine tracks on Pop Smoke's debut mixtape Meet the Woo, released July 26, 2019 by Victor Victor Worldwide and Republic Records. Pop Smoke was born Bashar Barakah Jackson in Canarsie, Brooklyn on July 20, 1999, and would have turned 27 this year. The sound that carried him past Brooklyn, the sliding 808 bassline sitting behind a sparse kick and snare, was built by a producer who had never set foot in Canarsie.

Pop Smoke was shot and killed during a home invasion robbery at a rented home in the Hollywood Hills on February 19, 2020. He was 20 years old. Investigators said the men who broke in reached the address from a photo Pop Smoke had posted the day before, a gift bag with the shipping label visible in frame. Four people were later charged, and one pleaded guilty to manslaughter in a Los Angeles courtroom.

Andre Loblack Built Most of Meet the Woo From Ilford

Loblack produced the bulk of Meet the Woo, with Rico Beats and Yoz Beats filling out the rest of the mixtape's 27 minute runtime. He had already built a name in UK drill producing for Headie One and 410 before Pop Smoke ever heard a beat of his. "Welcome to the Party," the single that broke Pop Smoke nationally and was later certified platinum, and "Dior," the record that turned Brooklyn drill into a genre outsiders could name, both run on Loblack's production. The pocket he built, a bassline sliding a half step behind the drums, is the reason a British producer's fingerprints sit at the center of a Brooklyn rapper's catalog.

50 Cent Cleared "Many Men" Before He Ran the Board

Pop Smoke interpolated the hook of 50 Cent's 2003 single "Many Men (Wish Death)" for his own track "Got It On Me," and 50 Cent signed off on the flip while Pop Smoke was still an unsigned Brooklyn rapper. That approval mattered again five months after Pop Smoke's death, when 50 Cent stepped in as executive producer of Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon alongside Steven Victor. 50 Cent has said publicly that he took no fee for the work; he called the featured artists himself and drove the deadlines so the album could release on schedule, July 3, 2020, debuting at number one on the Billboard 200.

Finally Offline covered the chart run and RIAA math behind Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon earlier this month. The credits tell a different part of that story, an executive producer working without pay because of a song clearance neither man expected to need again.

A Second Album Arrived With Kanye West and Dua Lipa Attached

Steven Victor released a second posthumous Pop Smoke album, Faith, on July 16, 2021, built from vocals Pop Smoke had recorded before his death. The guest list ran from Kanye West and Pusha T on "Tell the Vision" to Dua Lipa on "Demeanor," Pharrell on "Spoiled," Kid Cudi on "8 Ball" and Future on "Mr. Jones," a feature spread that crossed rap, pop and R&B without Pop Smoke in the room to approve a single verse. Two of his three studio length releases were finished entirely after he died.

That is the mechanics of a posthumous rollout most listeners never see: an executive matching unfinished vocal stems to A list features based on what he believed the artist would have wanted, then clearing every one of those features individually. It worked commercially, and it also means most of what carries Pop Smoke's name into 2026 was assembled by people who knew his catalog better than they knew him.

569 Percent Growth Traces Back to One Pocket From Ilford

Sexy drill streaming grew 569 percent year over year in 2026. The tempo and drum programming both trace back to the sliding bassline pocket Loblack built for Pop Smoke in 2019, even though Pop Smoke did not invent Brooklyn drill; Sheff G and 22Gz were already rapping over UK drill instrumentals before Meet the Woo existed. What Loblack's production added was a specific, repeatable pocket that other producers spent years copying, the reason sexy drill's streaming surge still sounds like a distant cousin of a 2019 mixtape. Fashion followed the sound out of Brooklyn too; the Street Dreams and Colors photography show that opened Tones of NYC in Bushwick this month documents the same blocks Pop Smoke rapped about, now a fixture on a gallery circuit that never covered drill in 2019.

Pop Smoke would have turned 27 this year. What carries his name past that birthday is two albums finished by other people, a beat built in East London, and a hook borrowed from a rapper who ended up running the sessions. That is not sentiment. That is the credit list.