Pop Smoke Album Cover Guide: Every Cover and the Virgil Abloh Switch
Every Pop Smoke album cover explained: Virgil Abloh's scrapped design, the chrome rose that replaced it, and what the Meet the Woo and Faith covers show.
Photo: Marc Schulte on Unsplash
Quick answer: there are four official Pop Smoke album cover designs, one for each project. The famous one belongs to Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon (2020). Virgil Abloh’s first design was pulled within hours after fans called it lazy, and the album came out on 3 July 2020 with Ryder Ripps’s chrome rose on a black background.
Pop Smoke, born Bashar Jackson, was shot and killed in a home invasion in Los Angeles on 19 February 2020, 12 days after his second mixtape came out. Both of his studio albums were released after his death. That’s why one cover caused so much anger: fans felt it was the last chance to present him properly.
We checked the 2020 and 2021 music press and the official Apple Music listings on 6 November 2026. This page describes each cover in words and links to the official pages. It doesn’t reproduce the artwork, which belongs to its rights holders.
Every Pop Smoke album cover at a glance
| Project | Released | What the cover shows | Who made it | How well documented |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meet the Woo (mixtape) | 26 July 2019 | No description in the press we checked | No reliable credit found | Low |
| Meet the Woo 2 (mixtape) | 7 February 2020 | No description in the press we checked | Apex Visions (self-reported) | Medium |
| Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon (album) | 3 July 2020 | A chrome rose on a black background | Ryder Ripps | High |
| Faith (album) | 16 July 2021 | A grainy close-up of his face on charcoal black, with his “Faith” tattoo above his left eye | Not named in the reports we found | High |
All four came out through Victor Victor Worldwide and Republic Records, according to the copyright lines on the official listings. The release dates above match those listings. The rest of this page takes each cover in turn, starting with the one most people are searching for.
What did Virgil Abloh’s Pop Smoke cover look like?
Abloh’s version was a photo collage. XXL reported that it reworked a Getty Images photo of Pop Smoke at Paris Fashion Week, wearing a royal blue Off-White robe Abloh had designed. Barbed wire, silver roses and puffs of smoke were added around him.
Abloh posted it on Instagram on Monday 29 June 2020. In the caption he said the cover was “one of like 5 things” they had talked about, and that Pop Smoke saw his story as a rose and thorns growing from the concrete of Canarsie, Brooklyn. He wrote that he had “just finished it yesterday”. He later deleted the post.
Abloh was the founder of Off-White and had a long record in rap album art. Complex’s history of his covers runs through Watch the Throne, Yeezus and Long.Live.ASAP, and calls the Pop Smoke design his most controversial.
Why did fans reject the Virgil Abloh cover?
Fans called it lazy and rushed, and the criticism moved fast. The complaints fell into four groups:
- The editing. Consequence said the shadows on his face didn’t match the added graphics, which made him look “like a cardboard cutout”.
- The photo. A widely shared tweet claimed Abloh had used the first Pop Smoke result on Google Images, as Stereogum noted.
- A petition. A Change.org petition passed 18,000 signatures by the morning of 30 June, according to the same Stereogum report.
- 50 Cent. The album’s executive producer replied “Eww”, asked Abloh for new art and shared more than 35 fan-made designs on Instagram, NME reported.
Pop Smoke’s manager, Steven Victor, had shared the cover with a caption saying the rapper wanted Abloh to design it and lead the creative work. Within about two hours he tweeted “MAKING A CHANGE” and “POP WOULD LISTEN TO HIS FANS”.
Victor later changed his tone. In 2023 he told the Rap Radar podcast that the backlash against Abloh was unfair, HotNewHipHop reported, and argued that fans didn’t know what Pop Smoke would have approved.
What is the final Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon cover?
The released cover is a chrome rose on a plain black background, with no photo of Pop Smoke at all. It was made by Ryder Ripps, an artist who had been the Pop Smoke estate’s creative director since May 2020, Pitchfork reported in a piece republished by Yahoo.
Both versions use a rose. Abloh tied it to Pop Smoke’s image of a rose growing from concrete, and a chrome rose had already appeared in the album’s promotional material. Ripps told Pitchfork the idea was “to take something impermanent and put it in a fixed state”. He also said Pop Smoke’s mother chose the final artwork.
The turnaround was tight. The new cover was due at midnight on Wednesday 1 July, but Ripps said it wasn’t finished and delivered to the label until Thursday morning, hours before release. He called the process a “scramble”.
The cover switch, day by day
- Monday 29 June 2020: Abloh and Victor post the cover on Instagram. Within about two hours, Victor tweets that a change is coming.
- Tuesday 30 June: the petition passes 18,000 signatures. 50 Cent posts “Eww” and shares fan designs.
- The same week: Ripps posts, then deletes, an Instagram message accusing Abloh of taking his “entire chrome rose concept”.
- Wednesday 1 July, midnight: the deadline for the new cover.
- Thursday 2 July, morning: Ripps delivers the finished artwork to the label.
- Friday 3 July: the album is released with the chrome rose cover.
- 2023: Victor defends Abloh on the Rap Radar podcast.
What do the Meet the Woo covers show?
The two mixtape covers got almost no press attention. We found no description of either one in the music coverage we read, and no reliable credit for the original Meet the Woo cover. Most of the search results we saw for it were fan posters and wallpapers, and some of those are redesigns.
For Meet the Woo 2, the photographer and designer Apex Visions lists the cover in its portfolio as work for Republic Records, “Shot & Edit by Apex Visions”. That’s the creator’s own claim, not an independent one. Discogs, a user-edited database, credits Terrance Radcliff with the package design of the CD edition, which is a separate job from the cover image.
If you want to see them, use the official Meet the Woo and Meet the Woo 2 listings rather than fan uploads.
What does the Faith cover show?
The Faith cover is a tight, grainy close-up of Pop Smoke’s face on a charcoal-black background, with the “Faith” tattoo above his left eye in clear view, REVOLT reported. Steven Victor revealed it on Instagram on 12 July 2021, alongside a trailer for the album.
The album came out on 16 July 2021 and debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, his second No. 1 after Shoot for the Stars, Billboard reported. Where Abloh’s version layered graphics over a photo, the Faith cover, as REVOLT describes it, is a single close-up portrait.
Fact or fan claim: five things people get wrong
- “Abloh used the first Google result.” That began as a fan tweet. XXL traced the image to a Getty photo from Paris Fashion Week. Both can be true, but nobody can check a 2020 search ranking now.
- “Fans designed the final cover.” They didn’t. 50 Cent shared fan designs, but the released cover is by Ryder Ripps.
- “Abloh stole the chrome rose.” That’s Ripps’s allegation from a deleted post. He later told Pitchfork, “There’s no hate for Virgil here.” We found no report of a legal claim over it.
- “The petition forced the change.” Victor’s tweets credited fans in general. We found no source saying the petition alone decided it.
- “The rose stands for ‘the Woo’.” We found no statement from Ripps or the estate saying so. The documented meanings are Abloh’s rose from concrete and Ripps’s “fixed state” idea.
Where to see the official Pop Smoke covers
The official Apple Music pages show every cover, including Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon and Faith. Our advice: use those, and avoid printing the covers on merch or reposting them as your own. The artwork is owned by its rights holders, and a cover isn’t free to use just because it’s everywhere online.
If an album-art debate ever comes up on a date, it’s a good sign you’ve found a shared interest. Our list of fun questions to ask has a few music prompts to keep it going. For more music explainers, see our Entertainment section, including what “squabble up” means.
Frequently asked questions
Who designed Pop Smoke’s album cover?
Ryder Ripps designed the released cover of Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon, a chrome rose on black. Virgil Abloh designed the first version, which was dropped before release. The Faith cover is a photograph, and Apex Visions says it shot and edited the Meet the Woo 2 cover.
Why was the Pop Smoke album cover changed?
Fans called Virgil Abloh’s design lazy and badly edited, a petition passed 18,000 signatures, and 50 Cent asked for new art. Steven Victor promised a change within about two hours of the reveal on 29 June 2020, saying Pop Smoke “would listen to his fans”.
What does the rose on the Pop Smoke cover mean?
Abloh said Pop Smoke described his story as a rose and thorns growing from the concrete of Canarsie, Brooklyn. Ryder Ripps, who made the final chrome rose, said the idea was to take something impermanent and fix it in place. Neither linked it to his nickname, “the Woo”.
Did Virgil Abloh copy Ryder Ripps?
Ripps accused Abloh of taking his chrome rose concept in an Instagram post he later deleted. Abloh’s representative didn’t comment to Pitchfork, and Ripps also said there was “no hate for Virgil”. It remains an allegation, and we found no report of a legal claim over it.
