Polo G has revealed Pop Smoke was supposed to be in the studio with him the night he was murdered in Los Angeles, California.
During an interview with the Full Send Podcast, Polo reflected on his relationship with the late Brooklyn rapper, whose music he discovered when he was first making noise. The Chicago native said he was instantly drawn to Pop’s drill movement given how similar it was to the scene in his hometown.
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“I fucked with Pop Smoke and the whole drill sound,” Polo said. “You know, coming from Chicago, that’s where that shit started at, so I really tapped into their shit. He had been hitting me up in the past but before I knew who he was, and then when I seen their wave going strong, I hit him like, ‘Yo, I fuck with y’all shit. Let’s do something.’”
He added: “The craziest thing, I worked with him right before he passed. I was in the studio with him. He said he was leaving to L.A.; I stayed in New York an extra day to make sure Fivio [Foreign] laid his verse [on ‘Clueless’].
“A contact was telling me Pop wanted to get in the studio in L.A. the night he passed. ‘Cause I live there, he live there, we was supposed to get up.”
Polo G and Pop Smoke linked up on several songs including “Fashion” and Rich the Kid’s “Money Call.” Their most popular collaboration, “Clueless” featuring Fivio Foreign, landed on Polo G’s Hall of Fame album which dropped in June 2021.
Diddy’s son King Combs shared a similar story about the fateful night Pop Smoke was killed, revealing he was in the studio with the rapper just hours before his murder.
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“I don’t even know how to explain that night,” Combs told HipHopDX in 2020. “That was my second time in the studio with him but we’d been around each other a lot. Any time we were around each other, it’s a lot of energy where you’re just dancing and having fun. Never any negative vibes, and it was the same thing this night.”
He continued: “We was in the studio, it was a late night. It was a couple of people, a couple of girls. Everybody is just laughing and having fun. He was playing music, and then I did a verse and he did some other songs. He actually did ‘Iced Out Audemars’ that night too and it was just dope.”
Combs revealed after he left the studio he was going to call Pop to link back up with him following the recording session. But instead, he had gotten pulled over by the LAPD and decided it was too late and headed back home. Once he got there and went to bed, Diddy burst into his son’s room to tell him the tragic news.
“My pops busts into my room and he’s like ‘Yo, Pop Smoke’ and I’m like, ‘Yo, I was just with him like an hour ago.’ It was crazy. Wow. Rest in peace Pop Smoke. That wasn’t even supposed to happen. He was supposed to be the biggest right now, man. But his legacy is living on and I’m always going to honor Pop Smoke.”
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Pop Smoke (real name Bashar Jackson) was shot and killed during a home invasion on February 19, 2020. Several hooded men broke into the Hollywood Hills home Pop was renting and took a woman in the property hostage.
The 20-year-old rapper crossed paths with the intruders and complied with their demands to give up his jewelry before attempting to fight them, which led to him being fatally shot.
