Pop Smoke Has the Top Hip-Hop Album of 2021 More Than a Year After His Death

‘Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon’ is the biggest rap album of the year; a second posthumous album, ‘Faith,’ drops Friday. Here’s why the late artist’s legacy endures.

Cover art from Pop Smoke's second posthumous album, ‘Faith.’

Photo: Victor Victor Worldwide/Republic Records
By

Neil Shah

The biggest hip-hop album of the year so far isn’t a 2021 release—it was already blaring out of car windows a year ago.

“Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon,” the posthumous debut album from late New York rapper Pop Smoke, is 2021’s most popular hip-hop album, according to MRC Data, formerly known as Nielsen Music, with the equivalent of 948,000 sales in the U.S. this year. Across all of music, “Shoot for the Stars,” which was released on July 3, 2020, is the fourth-most-consumed album, after records by Justin Bieber, Olivia Rodrigo and Morgan Wallen, MRC Data says.

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