Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon
Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon is the debut studio album by American rapper Pop Smoke. It was posthumously released on July 3, 2020, by Victor Victor Worldwide and Republic Records, and a deluxe edition of the album that includes fifteen additional tracks—including remixes of three songs from the original—was released on July 20 that year, a date that would have been Pop Smoke's 21st birthday. It is a drill, trap, and R&B record.
American rapper 50 Cent executive-produced Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon following the murder of Pop Smoke during a home invasion on February 19, 2020. 50 Cent finished the album for Pop Smoke by calling the featured artists and taking care of the deadlines. After the completion, 50 Cent helped fulfill Pop Smoke's wish to take his mother to an awards show. Jess Jackson mastered and sequenced Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon and reworked the tracks to get the professional sound of a big recording studio. Before his death, Pop Smoke had begun to set up the Shoot for the Stars Foundation to help youth achieve their goals while living and growing up in difficult circumstances, providing access to technology and other resources. Guest appearances on the album include Quavo, Lil Baby, DaBaby, Swae Lee, Future, Rowdy Rebel, 50 Cent, Roddy Ricch, Tyga, Karol G, Lil Tjay, and King Combs. The deluxe edition of the album adds appearances from Fivio Foreign, Dafi Woo, Dread Woo, Davido, PnB Rock, Jamie Foxx, Gunna, Young Thug, A Boogie wit da Hoodie, Queen Naija, Calboy, and Burna Boy.
Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon was supported by six singles, including US Billboard Hot 100 top-20 hits "The Woo", "Mood Swings", "For the Night", and "What You Know Bout Love". Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon was a commercial success, debuting at number one on the US Billboard 200 and giving Pop Smoke his first US number-one album. All 19 tracks on the standard album also charted on the Billboard Hot 100 following its first week of release, which gave the late rapper the most simultaneous entries on the Hot 100 posthumously. The album spent two non-consecutive weeks atop the Billboard 200 and received a double platinum certification. With Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon spending 34 weeks in the top five of the Billboard 200, it became the fourth album in the 21st century to spend so many weeks in the top five.
The album also topped the US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums for 19 non-consecutive weeks and Top Rap Albums chart for 20 non-consecutive weeks, making it the longest-running number-one record on the latter chart. Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon received mostly positive reviews from music critics upon release and multiple publications praised the production. It appeared on several publications' lists of the best albums of 2020, including being placed in the top-10 by Billboard, Complex, The New York Times, The Ringer, and NPR. The album won Top Billboard 200 Album and Top Rap Album at the 2021 Billboard Music Awards.
Background
American record producer Rico Beats introduced rapper Pop Smoke to record executive Steven Victor in April 2019. After signing to Victor's label Victor Victor Worldwide and Republic Records, Pop Smoke told Victor in addition to rapping, he had experience as a singer, having previously sung for services at a church. To demonstrate his abilities, Pop Smoke played Victor an unreleased song called "Something Special" and a track called "What You Know Bout Love"; the latter made a deep impact on Victor Victor executives, persuading them Pop Smoke was more than "just another drill rapper from Brooklyn". Victor knew that many of rap's most popular musicians had been responsible for pushing new sounds into the mainstream because he worked closely with American rapper Kanye West as the chief operating officer of his record label GOOD Music at the time. The record executive devised a strategy in which Pop Smoke would go on to create a series of mixtapes devoted only to Brooklyn drill, which would be "raw, gritty street rap with bass-heavy production". After Pop Smoke would establish himself as the "leader" of the subgenre that was growing in New York City, he would then release a debut album that showcased his melodic side with bigger, more mainstream songs like "Something Special".On February 19, 2020, less than a year after signing his record deal, Pop Smoke was renting an Airbnb owned by The Real Housewives star Teddi Mellencamp and her husband, Edwin Arroyave, in Hollywood Hills, California. The rapper was killed at the age of 20 during an attempted home invasion. Four hooded men, one of whom was wearing a ski mask and carrying a handgun, broke into the house Pop Smoke was renting. A 15-year-old boy, the youngest of the four intruders, shot Pop Smoke three times in the chest with a Beretta M9 after fighting with him. The robbers stole Pop Smoke's diamond-studded Rolex watch, which they sold for $2,000. Pop Smoke was rushed to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where doctors performed a thoracotomy on the left side of his chest but a few hours later, he was pronounced dead. The day before his murder, Pop Smoke and friend Mike Dee had posted several images on their social media, including one in which Mellencamp's home address can be seen in the background. The rapper also posted a story on Instagram and Facebook of gifts he had received. One showed the house's full address on the packaging, giving out its location.
At the beginning of March 2020, American rapper 50 Cent announced on his Instagram feed he had been listening to Pop Smoke's work and had decided to help finish the late artist's debut album by serving as executive producer. As executive producer, 50 Cent contacted artists Roddy Ricch, Drake, and Chris Brown, asking them if they wanted to be included on the record. A few weeks later, 50 Cent recalled during an Instagram live when he first met Pop Smoke in an office. The late rapper was focused on his phone, making 50 Cent annoyed. He got up and saw that Pop Smoke was actually writing everything he said down on his phone. He stated he "fell in love" with Pop Smoke and was going to executive produce his album. In a later interview with Billboard, 50 Cent said he would not earn any money as the album's executive producer—he wanted to finish it because of his relationship with Pop Smoke. After production was completed, 50 Cent helped fulfill Pop Smoke's desire to take his mother to an awards show. Pop Smoke had begun to set up the Shoot for the Stars Foundation in January 2020 to help young people achieve their goals despite living and growing up in difficult circumstances, providing access to technology and other resources. After his death, Pop Smoke's family announced they would continue the foundation.
Recording
Before being signed to VVW, Pop Smoke had recorded the first songs for Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon in Los Angeles, London, the Bahamas, and Paris. After completing his mixtapes Meet the Woo and Meet the Woo 2, Pop Smoke wanted to show how he had matured musically. In mid-February 2020, he flew to Los Angeles to record as much music as possible for the album. In the last days of his life, he recorded the album's final songs. Pop Smoke and his team were planning to complete the album in Los Angeles; he was also scheduled to embark on his debut headlining concert tour "Meet the Woo Tour" from the first week of March; his album was to have been mixed and mastered while he was on tour.According to Victor, Pop Smoke's debut album was meant to showcase his talent. Pop Smoke told 50 Cent he was working on the album and would send him songs. The former told the late rapper he wanted him to re-record his songs. After Pop Smoke was murdered, Victor lost interest in finishing the album until he met with 50 Cent, who persuaded Victor finishing the album would help honor Pop Smoke's wish for it to be released by the summer of 2020. 50 Cent also argued the record's release would help support Pop Smoke's family. To ensure the album's release, 50 Cent told Victor if he was not ready to complete the project, he would executive-produce the album. Victor agreed to this, and 50 Cent listened to all of the songs, sequenced them, and promoted the album. 50 Cent, in an interview with Complex said Pop Smoke had recorded "about 50 or 60 tracks. Some of them were not completed ... Some had a chorus that was finished, and then somebody else rapped to it, and he put a verse on it". According to Victor, "eighty percent of the songs were finished" before 50 Cent got involved and largely "added some ad-libs or changed a verse here and there".
Jess Jackson, the album's mastering engineer, described his job as "wizardry", largely because he was constrained by the sometimes poorly recorded material and unfinished double vocals. According to Jackson in Complex, "if was around to this day, I would ask him to get back in the studio and just lay in an additional double or something". Jackson refined the tracks to get the professional sound of a big recording studio; he wanted to honor Pop Smoke's memory by not "chang it to a large extent". While sequencing the album, Republic Records wanted the track-listing to be a certain way but Jackson realized some tracks did not work together. Jackson and the record company cooperated to sequence the album so each song is in time with the next track. Jackson submitted the final version of the album's masters at 06:00 on June 30, 2020; he said it had been a difficult process and that he had been working on the album for over six months, often working on it for 10 to 12 hours a day.
"Paranoia" originally contained a verse from Pusha T. UMG forced the verse to be removed from the track as they believed it contained lyrics dissing Drake.