Meet the Woo 2

In January 2020, Pop Smoke announced on his TikTok account the release date for Meet the Woo 2. The announcement came a few days after federal authorities arrested the rapper at John F. Kennedy International Airport for allegedly stealing a Rolls-Royce Wraith, valued at $375,000. The owner reported it stolen after Pop Smoke had reportedly borrowed it in California for a music video shoot on the condition it be returned the next day. Police charged Pop Smoke with a federal grand theft auto charge after pressuring him to snitch on the Crips and a non-fatal shooting that took place in Brooklyn in June 2019. Victor Victor Worldwide and Republic Records released Meet the Woo 2 on February 7, 2020. It is the second installment in the Meet the Woo mixtape series, following Meet the Woo (2019). On January 29, 2020, Pop Smoke announced his debut concert tour Meet the Woo Tour and teased a promotional flyer of the tour to promote both Meet the Woo and Meet the Woo 2. Tour dates were announced on the same day for North America, while dates for the United Kingdom were revealed in February. The tour was planned to begin in the United States in March and end in the United Kingdom in April. Four hooded men, one wearing a ski mask and carrying a handgun, broke into a Hollywood Hills 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. 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. ==Music and lyrics==

Writing for Pitchfork, Reed Jackson stated that Meet the Woo 2 "provides more gritty drill music you can clench your jaw to". Aron A. of HotNewHipHop mentions that Meet The Woo 2 has "London's penchant for electronic music", and that it "brings it all back to the mecca of hip-hop". The mixtape opens with "Invincible", where Pop Smoke maintains he understands the streets. This is followed by a drill track "Shake the Room" featuring Quavo. Dominiq R. of HotNewHipHop described the song as being "led by a harmonious vocal and bass-driven woodwind instrumentation". "Get Back" is a hip-hop track with a horn and string sample, a soft piano riff, bass line and police sirens. Dominiq R. commented that Pop Smoke "aggressively delivers a plethora of gun bars letting his opposition know to stay back". "Christopher Walking" feels Pop Smoke compares himself to Frank White, a character played by Christopher Walken in the 1990 American neo-noir crime thriller film King of New York. The song prominently interpolates the lyrics of 50 Cent's 2005 hit single "Window Shopper". Lyrically, Pop Smoke raps about taking shots at his enemies on the streets and mentions his love for Dior and bust-downed jewelry. with both rappers rapping about their lavish and expensive foreign items. Kyann-Sian Williams of NME said "Sweatheart", which features Fivio Foreign, had an "affinity that went deeper than rap", and that both Pop Smoke and Fivio Foreign learned from each other and maneuvered as "drill's Batman and Robin". Jessica Mckinney and Brad Callas of Complex wrote "Element" finds Pop Smoke "rapping malicious lines over ominous production". "Armed N Dangerous (Charlie Sloth Freestyle)" was first released as a single called "Fire in the Booth, Pt. 1" in November 2019, after Pop Smoke flew to the UK to record the track with Sloth. In the lyrics, Pop Smoke raps about being part of the Crips gang. "Mannequin", featuring Lil Tjay, interpolates Ariana Grande's number one hit single "7 Rings". It is a pop song with Pop Smoke and Lil Tjay rapping an ode to wealth. "Dior", the bonus track, is a drill and hip-hop track with lyrics about flirting with women and buying the latest designer clothes. The final bonus track, "War" featuring Lil Tjay, is a drill and hip-hop song. ==Promotion==

Singles Taking to Instagram, Pop Smoke teased a preview of "Christopher Walking", the mixtape's lead single, a few days before its release. Victor Victor Worldwide and Republic Records later released "Christopher Walking" on January 16, 2020. A music video for "Christopher Walking", directed by Brennan Rowe, was released the same day as the song. "Shake the Room" was released as the mixtape's second single on March 28, 2020. A music video for the song was released on the same day as the song's single release. Off-White founder and Louis Vuitton artistic director Virgil Abloh's Off-White International Rap Video Production Studio in Paris produced it during Paris Fashion Week. It marked Pop Smoke's first posthumous music video after his death. The song peaked at number 93 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number 76 on the UK Singles Chart. Other songs and live performances "War" was released as a standalone single on October 4, 2019. A music video for the song, directed by JLShotThat, was released on October 28, 2019. Shot in black and white, the video features Pop Smoke and Lil Tjay rapping their verses in a huge mansion, as scenes switch between them on street bikes, performing live, and shutting down a show. "Element" also peaked at number 90 on the Canadian Hot 100. It was later sent to American rhythmic contemporary radio as Meet the Woo third and final single on February 11, 2020. A music video for "Dior", directed, produced, and edited by JLShotThat, was released on September 3, 2019. It features Pop Smoke and a group of men and women dancing to the track in a strip club and in a nearby parking lot. Following Pop Smoke's death, "Dior" debuted at number 49 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the rapper's first solo and posthumous Hot 100. Following the release of Pop Smoke's posthumous debut studio album Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon (2020), "Dior" peaked at number 22 on the Hot 100. In November 2020, "Dior" received a nomination for Best Rap Performance at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards. In October 2019, Pop Smoke performed "Dior" live on MTV's Total Request Live offshoot program Fresh Out Friday. A month later, he performed the song for VevoDSCVR, a platform showcasing emerging young artists. Later in December, he performed "Dior" and "War" live at a Rolling Loud concert in Los Angeles, California. In February of the following year, shortly after his death, the Yard Club in Paris, France, debuted an on-stage hologram of Pop Smoke that performed "Dior" virtually. ==Critical reception==

Meet the Woo 2 was met with generally positive reviews. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an average score of 75, based on five reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Reed Jackson of Pitchfork enjoyed the album, saying that Meet the Woo 2 is "all sort of sounds like 'Party', but it gets over on sheer maximalism like [Meet the Woo] did, with just enough deft touches to keep things exciting". HipHopDX critic Bernadette Giacomazzo said, "Pop Smoke's raw growling was jarring and hard against these bouncy beats but surprisingly, it's also wildly effective". Reviewing the mixtape for Exclaim!, Erin Lowers stated the record "feels timely", and though the tone of "Pop Smoke's voice is already enough to set him apart from other artists coming out of New York, there's energy felt in his music that keeps you engaged. We'll have Meet the Woo 2 to remember that energy forever." Steve "Flash" Juon of RapReviews said, "As for meaningful depth to his bars, humorous "press rewind" punchlines or emotionally resonant stories, I regretfully must honestly say he didn't grab me in any of these categories. As a lyricist, he was "just there" – not terrible, not brilliant, just okay. Does he show future potential on Meet the Woo Vol. 2? Yes. Absolutely". Fred Thomas of AllMusic commented Meet the Woo 2 has "unrelentingly raw energy" that makes it some of Pop Smoke's best material. He said every song on the mixtape "walks a razor-thin line between fun and danger, thick with the same tension that fills the room right before a fight breaks out". He concludes by saying that Pop Smoke "keeps this tension hanging for the entire duration of the tape, creating something that's exhilaratingly bleak and always ready to explode". In a less enthusiastic review, NMEs Kyann-Sian William said the mixtape features some "slightly lackluster" songs, mentioning that A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie vocals on "Foreigner" are a "sloppy delivery [that] might have been scrapped entirely from the mixtape". However, she says "Pop Smoke's latest is one for the mosh-pitting party-goers". Year-end lists ==Commercial performance==

Meet the Woo 2 debuted at number seven on the US Billboard 200 chart dated February 22, 2020, selling 36,000 album-equivalent units, including 5,000 pure album sales in its first week. This gave Pop Smoke his first top-10 hit in the United States. The mixtape reached number five on the US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. After Pop Smoke's death, the mixtape rose to number 16 on the chart dated February 28, 2020, giving the rapper his first top-20 hit in the UK. The British Phonographic Industry certified the mixtape silver for sales of 100,000 album-equivalent units in the United Kingdom. The mixtape peaked within the top-30 of record charts in Australia, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, Finland, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and on the Belgium Flanders chart. ==Track listing==

Notes • signifies a co-producer • signifies an additional producer Sample credits • "Christopher Walking" contains interpolations from "Window Shopper", performed by 50 Cent. • "Mannequin" contains interpolations from "7 Rings", performed by Ariana Grande. ==Personnel==

Performers • Yoz Beatz – programming (1, 3, 7) • Quavo – rap vocals (2) • 808MeloBeats – programming (2, 5, 8–10, 12, 13, 15) • CashMoneyAP – programming (4) • A Boogie wit da Hoodie – rap vocals (5) • Fivio Foreign – vocals (6) • Rico Beats – programming (6, 8) • Yamaica – programming (6) • Lil Tjay – rap vocals (9) • Axl – programming (11) • Nav – rap vocals (14) • Swirving – programming (14) • Gunna – rap vocals (15) • PnB Rock – rap vocals (16) • Othello Beats – programming (16) Technical • Jess Jackson – mixer, mastering engineer (1–11, 16) • Jaycen Joshua – mixer (12, 15), vocal mix (15) • Fabian Marasciullo – mixer, mix engineer (13) • Pro Logic – mixer, vocal mix (14) • Colin Leonard – mastering engineer (13–15) • Corey "Cutz" Nutile – engineer (1–11, 14–16) • Vic Wainstein – engineer (12) • Yung Ave – engineer (12, 15) • Dru Oliver – engineer (13) • TheElements – engineer (14) • Sage Skofield – assistant mixer (1–11, 16) • DJ Riggins – assistant mixer (12, 15), vocal mix (15) • Jacob Richards – assistant mixer (12, 15), vocal mix (15) • Mike Seaberg – assistant mixer (12, 15), vocal mix (15) • Thomas McLaren – assistant mixer (13) ==Charts==

Weekly charts Year-end charts ==Certifications==