The First Time: Pop Smoke

Pop Smoke has had a hell of a year — within months of releasing his breakout single “Welcome to the Party,” the Brooklyn rapper has already collaborated with Nicki Minaj and Skepta on two remixes, and he recently backed Travis Scott on the song “Gotti.” The track was featured on Scott’s compilation EP, Jackboys, highlighting his new record-label venture, Cactus Jack Records.

“ I met Travis was his festival in Houston,” Pop recently told Rolling Stone, referencing Travis Scott’s Astroworld event last November. “That was crazy, too. They gave me my own bottle, mad merch — different.”

While in the Rolling Stone offices, Pop Smoke also discussed recent star-struck moments — meeting 50 Cent and Off-White founder-designer Virgil Abloh, to name two — as well as his writing process for his new mixtape, Meet the Woo, Vol. 2, released last Friday.

“I never wrote down] anything,” he says. “It’s all up my head. Everything that I be writing, everything that I be saying, when it comes to these types of songs, just be so natural. Just how I be feeling. However, some songs I do write, and you’ll know the ones that I write, ’cause you’ll feel it.… I used to write poetry and all that crazy shit. Spoken word.”