Pop Smoke - Meet The Woo 2 (Album Review)
Pop Smoke, New York drill rapper, came to my attention during his feature on 'GATTI' on Travis Scott's 'JACKBOYS' collaboration project. Personally, I loved his verse and his raspiness, so when I saw he was dropping his sophomore album 'Meet The Woo 2', I decided to give it a listen. It was pretty obvious what the purpose of this album was. It was music to get hyped too, so the question is does it serve its purpose? To an extent yes. I can see why other people would get hyped too it but personally I'm just hearing track one repeated on twelve other tracks losing all its effect and becomes boring. Firstly, the subject matter is extremely repetitive with no variations of the topics. Guns, girls, drugs. Lyrically he doesn't even keep this topics interesting and borderline says the exact same thing each and every time - and none of its clever, in fact it's all generic. I didn't catch a good bar during any of this. For the most part the production is one dimensional like the kicks, snares & 808's have been copy and pasted into every beat with maybe the odd beat sounding slightly different (such as 'Element'). I'm not even saying the production is bad, it's just repetitive making it tedious as every track passes.
The features don't do an amazing job but it's refreshing to hear a different style of rap on some of these songs. I'd probably argue Quavo was the most enjoyable of all the features for his appearance on the track 'Shake the Room'. Despite my need of a refreshing sound there is elements to Pop Smoke's style I do enjoy. His raspy delivery (which he has been criticised for) I personally think is enjoyable and it isn't an element to this album that gets old (unlike other things). His energy is high and hyped as it should be on an album like this but his flow is very basic and one dimensional which again becomes a repetitive factor.
Into the track list, we start with 'Invincible'. There are elements to this song I like such as the beat drop as Pop Smoke enters, his energy, the aggression in his voice on the track - but it's these elements that eventually get repeated and ran into the ground. However, we do keep up a slight bit of momentum with 'Shake the Room'. The vocals layered into the beat are nice, the hook is catchy, Quavo's verse doesn't say much but it's quick flow keeps it slick and snappy. Despite the advantages, it's Pop Smoke himself who lets the track down with his pretty forgettable verse. 'Get Back' again isn't bad, the beat drop is nice again and Pop even switches his flow up and sounds good. The verse isn't too long, the energy is high and this song really serves its purpose and gets me hyped. Then we hit the wall of uninspiring songs. 'Christopher Walking' is a listenable track, but we've heard the beat, subject matter, flow etc. three times already on this album, and it's at this point we really begin to spiral down hill. 'Foreigner' has a simple hook but it's not bad. Pop Smoke's verse again is the same I've heard for four tracks now. A Boogie Wit da Hoodie's sound was refreshing, but his verse was poor - didn't say much, generic flow and it kind of dragged. Beat pretty similar to other beats again but the 808's did go hard.
Fivio Foreign who I've never heard of before was alright to be fair on 'Sweetheart' with his delivery sounding nice over the beat. Pop Smoke as you can guess, well it was the same verse for five now. The production is also nothing new and the hook is horrible. He goes for the melodic style and it doesn't pay off. He also used the exact same cadence for the hook of 'Shake the Room' to add to the repetitiveness. Finally, after disliking the last few tracks we get one I quite enjoy in 'Element'. The beat is different as I said but it still has the same elements (see what I did there) as some of the other beats but there are some solider drums which spice things up partnered by a piano or violin it seems dominating the beat. I like his switch of style on this song to a flow reminiscent of Anderson .Paak on Eminem's 'Lock It Up'. His hook is also catchy so I can forgive the verses for saying absolutely nothing - despite that they come across cleaner. I don't absolutely love this song but it's not bad. Back to poor songs it seems after 'Element' with 'Armed N Dangerous'. The hooks mediocre, the verses well you can really guess now. The beat gets brownie points for harmonising in the background but it doesn't save the track it's still a boring one.
'Mannequin' gives us our first of two Lil Tjay features - and it sounds just like A Boogie's feature earlier. They have chemistry I can say, but the song is nothing new and once again is lifeless. Both 'Dreaming' and 'She Got A Thing' are spiritless tracks again, and I don't want to sound repetitive myself so I'll also add that the bonus tracks 'Dior' & 'War' are tedious as well, with 'Dior' having a slight variation of style but not enough and both tracks not needing to be three minutes long. On 'War' Lil Tjay sounds like a rip off of Lil Skies this time, and doesn't really offer us a unique dynamic to the track.
The longer this album goes on, the harder it is to sit through and listen to it because it gets dull so quick, and just proceeds to never end as I hear the same song over and over again. I don't know if I can see myself coming back to any of these songs again.
FAVOURITE TRACKS: Shake the Room, Get Back, Element
LEAST FAVOURITE TRACK: Dreaming
OVERALL RATING: Weak 3.5/10