Pop Smoke. Courtesy photo
Recently deceased Pop Smoke, whose real name Bashar Barakah Jackson, was an up and coming rapper.
On Feb. 19 police responded to a call coming from the area near Smoke’s home on 2000 block of Hercules Drive in West Hollywood, Calif.
The call described several people, one of them masked and armed with a gun breaking into the rapper’s home right before 5 a.m.
When the police arrived at the scene, they found Smoke wounded by gunfire. He was rushed to the hospital where he was pronounced dead a short while later.
The Los Angeles Times reported that “at least 4 suspects fled the scene and have yet to be found.”
Investigators discovered that the rapper or someone from the rapper’s crew posted an image of the home’s address on social media.
During Pop Smoke’s career he managed to work with some great artists like PnB Rock, A Boogie wit da Hoodie, Quavo and Travis Scott.
The young rapper jumped onto the hip-hop scene with his rowdy “Welcome to the Party” last summer, which was later remixed with fellow New Yorker Nicki Minaj.
He was signed to Republic Records and Victor Victor Worldwide. He’s most known for his song “War” ft. Lil Tjay, where he let his enemies know that one call is all it takes to solve any of his problems.
Though Smoke is no longer with us, he was working on a mixtape at the time of his death. In an interview just prior to his death with Power 106 Smoke said called out some of the artists he would like to have featured on the mixtape.
He also gave a rough run down of how many songs would be on the mixtape, who he wanted as features and what he expected for the upcoming year.
His plans were to do another collab with Travis Scott and to also do some work with Calboy, as he mentioned in an L.A. Leakers interview.
Following his death, his streams and views skyrocketed to the top, many artists have spoken out about his death including Nicki Minaj who was one of the many artists that reacted to his timely death.
“The bible tells us that jealousy is as cruel as the grave. Unbelievable. Rest in Peace Pop,” Minaj wrote alongside the picture she posted on her Instagram.
Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson was also one of the people crushed by Smoke’s death.
“R.I.P to my man Pop Smoke, no sympathy for winners,” 50 Cent said on Twitter. “ God Bless him.”
50 Cent also announced that he will be completing Pop Smoke’s album with help from artists such as Post Malone, Roddy Rich, Drake, and Chris Brown.
In a story Hypebeast mentioned that 50 Cent released a teaser of the album’s release date on Instagram earlier this week.
“Set for release in May. Oh yeah @postmalone I’m gonna hit ya phone, I need you on this,” 50 Cent wrote as a caption on his Instagram page following up with a picture of Pop Smoke.