Steven Victor, who managed Pop Smoke, is among those responsible for preserving the late rapper’s legacy, and he has now shared his thoughts about people who have criticized the way he has gone about the task.
During an appearance on the Rap Radar podcast on Friday (June 30), the Brooklyn native addressed the backlash Virgil Abloh received for the cover art of Pop’s posthumous albums.
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“That was bullshit,” he said. “People sit back and think they know, but they don’t know shit. They’re like, ‘oh, this is not what Pop would like.’ I’m like, ‘fuck you talkin’ about?’”
He added: “When we did the video for ‘Shake the Room,’ like that whole concept and idea was Virgil’s idea, and when we were going through the process, like at first, Pop was like—’cause, y’know, he’d never had a video like that—he was like, ‘I don’t know,’ but he trusted Virgil’s vision, so it would’ve been the same thing.”
The above conversation between Victor and Brian “B.Dot” Miller can be confusing because they refer to the controversy in reference to Faith, Pop’s second posthumous album, whereas the ordeal was in fact a product of the first, Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The Moon.
Months after the New York rapper was murdered, Victor unveiled the album’s cover art and revealed Pop had requested that Abloh design it. Although his wish was granted, fans were quick to call out the Louis Vuitton director for an apparent lack of effort.
A petition asking to change the cover art began picking up steam immediately, prompting the label to then replace it. Conceptual artist Ryder Ripps was subsequently summoned to redo the visual and he settled on the imagery of a chrome rose atop a pitch-black background.
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“I was brought on to do design and creative direction for this project, and I was experimenting with flowers in 3D at the time,” Ripps said in an interview with Complex. “While I was experimenting, I realized, ‘Oh my God, this is so perfect.’ People use flowers to memorialize people, and by fixing it in metal, it’s taking something that’s fleeting and making it permanent.”
Less than a day before the album went live, Pop Smoke’s mother chose and finalized the cover art.
The following year, in 2021, Faith was released to commercial success. The cover art features a close-up, black-and-white photograph of the deceased rapper, with the “faith” tattoo above his left eyebrow highlighted. Unlike Virgil’s attempt with Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The Moon, the visual for its follow-up was well-received by fans.
