Pop Smoke was not a rising star, but rather a shooting star. This past month, Brooklyn lost 20-year-old Bashar Barakah Jackson to a home invasion in Los Angeles, California, and New York has been reeling and mourning ever since. Now, any hip-hop centered event has become a dedication to the artist the city never got to fully see prosper. Tracks like “Welcome To The Party” and “Dior” have become unifying community anthems for a city that’s only begun to start grieving.

He was the breath of fresh air that Brooklyn drill had been gasping for since the incarceration of Bobby Shmurda. He was a staple in his community and brought together a coalition of influences in the music realm, from his infectious dances to the earth-shattering tone in his voice. While those in the Brooklyn drill scene knew the star power that Pop Smoke held at the time of his death, the rest of the world was just starting to catch up to the fire that started in Canarsie, Brooklyn.

Pop Smoke was a hometown hero. When talking to my friend Stefan Bunbury, a longtime Crown Heights native and photographer, this notion became more apparent than ever. “You don’t understand, seeing someone come out of the same conditions I live in made me feel like I could do anything,” he told me.

“He just meant so much to Brooklyn, and it’s just different when someone walked the same streets you do. It’s just crazy to me he survived Canarsie, literally the most dangerous part of Brooklyn, only to get killed in Hollywood Hills.”

His artistry was held back by the oppressive forces that have plagued New York rap since its inception. The NYPD has had a stranglehold on Brooklyn drill music since it gained notoriety, and this effectively dampened the stardom that Pop Smoke was cultivating. The best example of this came in February when the NYPD denied Pop Smoke access to his homecoming coronation at Kings Theatre three days before he died.

Throughout his entire career, he was targeted by the police, and the result of this was a king denied his kingdom. The oppression Pop Smoke and others in the drill community have suffered at the hands of the police may have held back his stardom while he was alive, but posthumously his legacy lives on.

Regardless of what held him back, his memoriam in Brooklyn focuses on what made him prosper. You cannot walk the streets of New York City without hearing his distinct voice, though now in the spirit of remembrance. Music that at one point lit up the party now serves as a timestamp for a much happier time in Brooklyn culture. However, the city has made sure that the music lives on, since the artist who created it was not given that opportunity.

There are so many aspects of his tragic story that strike a chord with me, but one particularly jarring aspect is that Pop Smoke was only 20 years old when he was killed. This has stuck with me heavily — that this artist, who was taking the world by storm, wasn’t even old enough to buy a beer when he was taken from us.

This is a horrible recurring aspect of hip-hop music, and specifically drill music. I had hoped would not plague the Brooklyn drill scene, yet it took its biggest star.

Pop Smoke had limitless potential and a sound that united continents, seeing as most of his production came from the U.K. He was not only a household name in the tri-state area but a force to be reckoned with around the world.

One of the most notable aspects of Pop Smoke’s career was how hyper-local his music was, spawning Brooklyn lingo and dances connected to the music. Yet his music was viewed so affectionately worldwide. His ability to create a sound that was so indistinguishably Brooklyn yet represented fan bases on different continents, is something that is so rare to hip-hop, and a skill Pop Smoke honed better than any modern rapper.

Pop Smoke is the king of New York. Though the title has been thrown around and diluted by any rising star in the New York music scene, seeing how far his music traveled and the effect his short-lived career had on the city makes this an undeniable fact.

Death cannot take the legacy that Pop Smoke left not only for the world, but the block, neighborhood, community and family he left behind. The mark he left cannot be washed away by the waves of tragedy, and the ripples of his legacy will live on forever. We may have lost the king, but the kingdom he created still remains to honor the memory of its fallen leader. Gone but never forgotten, rest in peace to the Brooklyn icon Pop Smoke.