Posted by In the wake of Pop Smoke’s tragic murder last February, the sound of the Woo continues on and in some ways, has inspired rappers who sound eerily similar to the “For The Night” rapper.
On Friday (January 8), Akademiks shared a video of rising Brooklyn rapper Dusty Locane and questioned his followers if they were going to be jamming Locane in the future.
“Brehs. Tell me y’all heard this,” Ak wrote. “This dude sounds exactly like the Big Woo. We finna vibe out to this dude #dustylocane or na?”
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Locane has released numerous singles on digital streaming platforms in the past few weeks including “Rolando (Caught In The Rain)” which has over 1.2 million views on YouTube since its release. The Empire signee initially blew with “R60LLXN N CONTROLLXN,” a freestyle uploaded to YouTube which has over 2.4 million views since its release in August. Akademiks spotlighted both tracks, leaving many to comment on whether the rapper was following the sound of New York drill or following in the footsteps of early 2000s era Los Angeles rapper Guerilla Black. Black was quickly panned by listeners following the release of his “Compton” single in 2004 as he sounded too similar to The Notorious B.I.G.
Pop Smoke Was 2020’s SoundCloud King
The popularity of Pop exploded in 2020 following his death. His posthumous debut album, Shoot For The Stars Aim For The Moon debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart and went double platinum. On numerous year-end charts such as SoundCloud, he was amongst the year’s most popular acts.
The late Brooklyn rapper’s catalog received over 191.5 million streams in 2020 and was crowned the DSP’s Top Artist for the year. “We celebrate the life and work of Pop Smoke as our Top Artist,” SoundCloud said via press release. “The rising Brooklyn drill star was beloved by the SoundCloud community and they continue to show it.”