A whole lotta faith

 

Pop Smoke got to witness a certain level of fame during his lifetime, enough to rap that he had indeed “made it”. Most his success was posthumous, however: his 2020 debut album Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon propelled the late artist straight to the pantheon of zeitgeist-making creative forces. In 20 short years of life: that definitely has to count for something. His sophomore album, Faith, released days ago, was sure to bring a whole lot of attention: now that the artist has grown to become a bona fide icon of contemporary music, African-American culture and, in ways, the entire Black Lives Matter movement, everyone wanted to know what some of Smoke’s last projects sounded like…

In short — good. While that shouldn’t be all that surprising given the scrutiny surrounding the project, many high profile releases have disappointed before (we won’t list them here: we prefer making friends than losing them). Overall quality and consistency is ensured by the presence of Smoke’s long-time producer 808Melo, who did a remarkable job navigating the treacherous territory that is posthumous work — this time without 50 Cent’s help. You are bound to make choices on behalf of what you assume the artist’s thoughts and ideas would have been, and conversely not been. With many people eager and ready to judge no matter how strong the output is. No, this is a highly cohesive, decidedly strong drill LP that we have here, one that clearly does not dishonour the memory or legacy of Mr Pop Smoke.

Is it great, though? That’s a trickier question to answer, in no small part because the release’s circumstances are so peculiar. But we will venture an opinion anyway: strong yes, great in the way Shoot for the stars was, maybe not. For one, the fact that this LP features so many other artists, although a great sign of support, makes many tracks so crowded you are left trying to focus on any specific bar. Again, you’ll be hard-pressed to find anything mediocre here, but having Kanye West, Pharrell, Kid Cudi, Chris Brown, 21 Savage and even pop superstar Dua Lipa around makes it look more like an award show line-up than regular album personnel…

Also, and that may as a somewhat ironic comment, but the fact that overall production on this album is so clean — then again, producers are about as all-star as performers: The Neptunes, Swizz Beatz, Jess Jackson, the aforementioned Kanye West all contributed to the collection — ever so slightly leaves freshness out the door. Whether or not this has to do with the very fact that meshing together so many contributions without sounding disjointed requires clinically-tested beats, the end result leaves the listener satisfied, but not necessarily enthralled, let alone surprised.

All in all, Faith is an album you should listen to, although it may not the lasting effect its predecessor had in our collective memories. That’s OK, there will (probably) be more…