Prince of the Pandemic
How one man's politically incorrect art got me through the worst of the plague
Sample, if you will, a few of late genius Bashar Jackson’s most offensive lyrics:
I pop a Perc, go retarded
Then shoot up the party, then change the artillery (from “Invincible”)
She like it rough when we fuck, so I'm grabbing that bitch by the throat (from “Christopher Walking”)
I'm at the crib with your bitch, she came with a dress, she left with no drawers (also from “Christopher Walking”)
Jackson, also known as Pop Smoke, was a prodigiously talented twenty-year-old rapper from Canarsie who was shot and killed on February 19th, 2020— weeks before the novel coronavirus started to overtake the United States.
In the short time he was creatively active, Pop Smoke produced some of the greatest hits of drill rap— a genre whose very name describes gun violence. His neighborhood in Brooklyn was described by New York Magazine as a place “most people don’t make it out of,” a landscape that “nurtures a devour-your-prey-whole mentality and, in turn, resiliency.”
Such is the bellicose nature of Jackson’s work that one can imagine God taking him away from the world in a time of great trial, in order for his spirit to preside over people below who must wage war against something unbeatable. There were many nights I went up to my roof in infected Gotham, when thousands had fled the city, and listened to him boast about dominating New York over beats that sounded like pistol whips. At a time when the enemy was everywhere but nowhere to be seen, when there was a corpse truck parked across from my building, and lines of people like zombies stretching around the block waiting to be tested, Pop Smoke’s growl was grit from on high telling me that no matter what, I would be ok. Not just ok. Victorious.
One day during the pandemic winter I took a long trip to Green-Wood Cemetery, where I knew he was buried. I had looked up his plot on the website Find a Grave, but as I entered the gates I encountered a worker who asked if I needed assistance. “I’m looking for Bashar Jackson,” I said, trying to be discreet. “POP SMOKE!” yelled the man, whipping out a paper map and drawing a path to the grave with a pencil while telling me the coronavirus was a hoax. I thanked him, and proceeded down the empty path.
When I got to Pop’s mausoleum, I saw that his plaque had been vandalized. I felt the urge to tell someone, but had encountered no one else in the expanse of the graveyard. The stone bearing his name looked like it had been hit with an axe, and gave the impression that whatever his positive output had been, the artist’s life had also been shaped by nefarious forces that are nearly impossible to escape, such as gang warfare. It is difficult to describe the feeling I had on that day, alone in the clouds of the cemetery. I did not feel unsafe, but was aware of the presence of some great danger or violence I cannot put a name to.
They told me the price, I said, fuck it
I spent it all with no budget
She love how I talk
She know I'm the king of New York (from “Christopher Walking”)
I remember a dream I had two years ago, in which I had taken a suicide pill. I was getting very sleepy, and my mother was standing next to me. The pill had almost taken its full effect, but I felt like I had made a mistake. I didn't actually want to die. I suddenly ran outside and started screaming things I wasn’t supposed to say. I was rageful and acting all kinds of ways I shouldn’t. I started to feel more alive. I told my mother that the pill should have killed me by then, but the key to staying alive was to keep saying these forbidden words. The more I said them, the more my strength returned.
Bashar Jackson’s work isn’t socially sanctioned. It isn’t art with a social objective, like the Supremacy Project produced at St. Ann’s Warehouse and lauded by Forbes that “addresses the systemic oppression and violence BIPOC communities are fighting to end through […] engagement in a ‘close examination of broken systems, marginalized communities, and the reordering of shared values.’”
No. It’s far more powerful than that. It isn’t about grievance— it’s about victory. It’s about glory. It’s about grabbing that bitch called life by the throat and fucking her raw.
Despite its huge cultural impact and the fact that it could be heard booming out of car stereos on every night of the year, Pop Smoke’s music (and drill in general) was barely recognized at the Grammys. His mentor Steven Victor noted that “it comes out; the public loves it; it does well commercially; it has success globally. And then, what’s deemed as the highest award in music doesn’t acknowledge them […] You’re like, Wait, what? It’s confusing because the public is telling you, ‘Hey, I love this. This music has gotten me through all different types of emotions. And this is where I go to …’ and the highest award in music is not going to acknowledge that? You can’t ignore what the people are saying. You have to take that into consideration […] This is the soundtrack to our lives right now. You have to acknowledge that. You can’t ignore that.”
Art must be free. It cannot be polite. If it is, it has no ability to heal. Bashar Jackson knew this. May he continue to say the bad words from Heaven, and set us free below.