Pop Smoke - Faith ALBUM REVIEW
When I saw that Kanye stan account tweet about how excited he was that Kanye said the n-word on his feature, I actually died a little bit inside.
I’m pretty confident in saying that if he was still in the land of the living, Pop Smoke would be one of the biggest stars in music. He just had this special thing about him that no one could ignore, and with good music to boot, he had the world paved for him. His first posthumous album, Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon, is one of the only modern examples of a posthumous release done right. With the help of executive producer 50 Cent, Pop Smoke’s work and image were given a whole new layer with the help of some of his closest collaborators at the top of their game. It is the perfect sendoff for an artist that was taken away from the world way too soon. At least it was. Quietly announced and released, Faith is the second posthumous album from the New York rapper. Granted, I was nervous going into this, mainly because of the features. Artists like Kanye West, Pusha-T, Rick Ross, The-Dream, 42 Dugg, 21 Savage, Takeoff, Chris Brown, Dua Lipa, Pharrell Williams, Kid Cudi, and Kodak Black are all here. Previous collaborators like Lil Tjay, Swae Lee, Future, and Quavo are also here too. Is Faith faithful to Pop Smoke’s sound? Let’s get into it.
God, what happened here? Something just feels wrong with this one. Where SFTSAFTM felt like it was still being made by Pop Smoke, this new album here just feels so cobbled together. Even the features on here scream ‘Hey, we need to honor Pop Smoke, so let’s get Ye and Push on a song together so it’ll get headlines along with new Pop Smoke material.’ Most of these artists wouldn’t even be on a Pop Smoke album if he died. I understand Karol G on his last album. Yes, it was a little confusing, but it was a collaboration that he wanted to make happen and that’s why she was on that album. This whole scenario is like Biggie’s Born Again. It feels incredibly forced and this didn’t have to be made at all. That could be said about any posthumous album, but if the music is good, we tend to put that notion to the side so we can listen to said music. Here, though, it’s genuinely strange that this album was finished and decided to be released for the public to listen to.
Honestly, Faith is one of the worst albums of the year. It’s a shame that Pop Smoke’s name is attached to this because it genuinely hurts to critique his music like this, especially this negative. This doesn’t take away from the fact that Pop Smoke had a lot of potential, but good lord, this is so bad. This is like that XXXTENTACION album Bad Vibes Forever. It’s that bad. I cannot believe I’m thinking of that album again. Look at what Faith did to me.
3/10
Listen here
YouTube Music
Faith is a Republic Records release.
I’m pretty confident in saying that if he was still in the land of the living, Pop Smoke would be one of the biggest stars in music. He just had this special thing about him that no one could ignore, and with good music to boot, he had the world paved for him. His first posthumous album, Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon, is one of the only modern examples of a posthumous release done right. With the help of executive producer 50 Cent, Pop Smoke’s work and image were given a whole new layer with the help of some of his closest collaborators at the top of their game. It is the perfect sendoff for an artist that was taken away from the world way too soon. At least it was. Quietly announced and released, Faith is the second posthumous album from the New York rapper. Granted, I was nervous going into this, mainly because of the features. Artists like Kanye West, Pusha-T, Rick Ross, The-Dream, 42 Dugg, 21 Savage, Takeoff, Chris Brown, Dua Lipa, Pharrell Williams, Kid Cudi, and Kodak Black are all here. Previous collaborators like Lil Tjay, Swae Lee, Future, and Quavo are also here too. Is Faith faithful to Pop Smoke’s sound? Let’s get into it.
God, what happened here? Something just feels wrong with this one. Where SFTSAFTM felt like it was still being made by Pop Smoke, this new album here just feels so cobbled together. Even the features on here scream ‘Hey, we need to honor Pop Smoke, so let’s get Ye and Push on a song together so it’ll get headlines along with new Pop Smoke material.’ Most of these artists wouldn’t even be on a Pop Smoke album if he died. I understand Karol G on his last album. Yes, it was a little confusing, but it was a collaboration that he wanted to make happen and that’s why she was on that album. This whole scenario is like Biggie’s Born Again. It feels incredibly forced and this didn’t have to be made at all. That could be said about any posthumous album, but if the music is good, we tend to put that notion to the side so we can listen to said music. Here, though, it’s genuinely strange that this album was finished and decided to be released for the public to listen to.
Honestly, Faith is one of the worst albums of the year. It’s a shame that Pop Smoke’s name is attached to this because it genuinely hurts to critique his music like this, especially this negative. This doesn’t take away from the fact that Pop Smoke had a lot of potential, but good lord, this is so bad. This is like that XXXTENTACION album Bad Vibes Forever. It’s that bad. I cannot believe I’m thinking of that album again. Look at what Faith did to me.
3/10
Listen here
YouTube Music
Faith is a Republic Records release.
Comments
Post a Comment