The album art for Pop Smoke’s upcoming posthumous album, Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The Moon, was recently revealed, and it was not warmly received. Fans accused Virgil Abloh of being lazy with the album cover and roasted the art. In an Instagram post, Abloh has explained his thought process behind the art.
Sharing the art in a post that is no longer on his Instagram, Abloh wrote, “the last conversation i had with @realpopsmoke was about what we were gonna do in the future. this album cover was one of like 5 things we talked about. he mentioned his story felt like the metaphor of a rose and thorns growing from concrete of of his hood in Canarsie, Brooklyn. in your memory I just finished it yesterday. as evident of the whole idea, the t-shirt insinuates it’s mandatory we put an and to this cycle of violence that plagues us, we need to shoot for the moon & aim for the stars. as heavy is it is we are celebrating your life the whole way thru. rest in peace young one.”
Artist Ryder Ripps shared a screenshot of the post and accused Abloh of poorly ripping him off, writing, “This man took the entire chrome rose concept from me, ruined it with careless graphic design and then wrote some bullsh*t about it. So sad that someone would care this little about art, design and the memory of a human who was so loved to wrap his name up in lies and theft.”
This is all a bit of a moot point now, though, as Smoke’s label said they would be making changes to the art used for the cover.