Victor points out that everyone associated with Brooklyn drill is ready to rally behind Pop Smoke, regardless of past beefs, because Pop always went out of his way to support the rest of the scene. Victor remembers Pop trying to convince him to sign Fivio Foreign and other artists shortly after he signed his own deal.

“Pop was really, really about the sound, most of all,” Victor explains. “I think part of the reason why a lot of the artists and producers really want to ride out for Pop is because he was so genuine. The minute he got on, he was trying to put everybody else on.”

Now, producers like AXL Beats and 808 Melo will play important roles when it comes to pushing the Brooklyn drill sound forward. Before Pop Smoke’s death, they both signed to Victor Victor as part of his plan to take this around the world.

“We’re from Brooklyn, and we love this sound,” Victor says. “We have all the resources, we have all the connections, we have the vision, and we have the focus to make it go global. I told [AXL, Melo, and other producers], ‘Come join this team and let’s get this thing together instead of going about it separately. Let’s all go at it as a team and make it what it’s supposed to be.’”

Both AXL and Melo say everything changed when they signed. “The first time I went to New York, Steven told me he could get me JAY-Z,” Melo recalls. “Who else could get me JAY-Z in the U.K.? No one. No one could get me. And he said he knew JAY-Z personally. He changed my life.”

Victor says he believes in these artists and the sound they’re pushing so much that he’s even made calls to try and get them in the same room as A-list artists like Beyoncé. “I just started speaking to everybody I know about them. Hand to hand, not just sending beats. I hit JAY-Z last year, and I was like, ‘Yo, bro, I found these kids. This is the new wave. Let me send you some joints, because six to eight months from now, this is where it’s going to be.’ Same thing with Quavo, Travis Scott, everyone. Even Kanye.”

Melo and AXL Beats both hint they have unreleased songs with major mainstream artists, but Victor makes it clear that if the sound is to continue on the trajectory it was on before Pop’s death, it’ll need to be carried by a homegrown artist.

“Pop Smoke was going to be the artist that broke the sound, and unfortunately he didn’t really get a chance to,” he says. “Obviously we have our Pop Smoke album, and that's going to be super impactful, but I think in order for it to really go the distance, they’re going to have to break an artist. It’s going to have to be a new artist, not an established artist, that takes this sound global. Somebody has to be the face of it, and it can’t be someone like Drake, because Drake has his own sound. It can’t be a Migo, because they have their own sound. We’re going to have to break an artist.

AXL and Melo share Victor’s vision. “I just hope that it keeps getting bigger, and becomes the biggest subgenre,” Melo says, “side by side with trap.”

The pair of producers are currently working on a joint project that will feature Brooklyn drill rappers, London rappers, and some bigger mainstream artists. And that’s not the only thing Victor has planned this year. “I’m working really, really hard on this Pop Smoke album,” he says. “And I’m working on a documentary for him, too. And his foundation. I’m just really focused on making this label like the next Jimmy Iovine and Interscope.”