Princewill Pius
Pop Smoke’s career was a total accident. It happened by chance, and if it weren’t for some very good weed, we may have never met the Woo. It’s just proof that no matter how hard you make plans, the universe might have other ideas.
According to a 2020 interview in XXL, Pop Smoke picked up a microphone for the first time when recording “MPR” in 2018. He was visiting a studio in Brooklyn with his friend and then-fledgling rapper Jay Gwuapo, but Gwuapo got too high and fell asleep. While Gwuapo was snoozing, Smoke decided to jump in the vocal booth and give it a whirl. He downloaded a random beat from YouTube, which according to The Fader, was created by 808Melo, an East London-based producer who later became one of the rapper’s close collaborators.
“MPR” was a success right out of the gate. “I knew it hit because it got leaked, and when it leaked, everybody was jacking the song,” Pop Smoke told The Fader. “And when it hit I was like, Yo, we got something here, and I kept going.” He signed to Victor Victor Worldwide, a Universal subsidiary, shortly after.
Written by: Nicki
