“We outside” is a popular phrase in rap parlance, one that denotes less a location than the speaker’s state of being. Said individual is active or in the mix; ready for the world and whatever it has in store for them, and then, often quite literally, outside running the streets. But in 2020, we weren’t outside. The pandemic kept us home, where everything that reached us needed to be processed in our most personal spaces. This worked out fine for Cardi B and Meg Thee Stallion’s “WAP”, a song that echoed across socials in a way it might not have if relegated strictly to the club, and also for Lil Baby, the MC whose near-perfect “The Bigger Picture” catapulted him, in that moment, from lord of contemporary trap music to voice of a generation. But there was also a 2020 before COVID, and that time is a lot easier to remember if you think about it soundtracked by the “ee-er, ee-er” sound effects of Roddy Ricch’s “The Box”. It becomes painful to think about when we consider the loss of Pop Smoke. The music stopped for the entirety of the rap world when Pop’s light was extinguished on 19 February. What he left behind, though, is a legacy as one of Brooklyn’s brightest young stars, his potential realised through Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon, a debut project that sounds as stellar played inside as it would have out. Reacquaint yourself with the dearly departed Brooklyn hero and all the hip-hop that dictated the culture in 2020.