One of the four men convicted in Pop Smoke’s 2020 murder has apologized to the late rapper’s mother, saying the killing was not personal.
In an interview with XVTV published on Tuesday (Oct. 13), Blockstar, who was 17 when the shooting happened, was asked to offer an apology he had never gotten the chance to make. He chose to address Pop Smoke’s mom.
“I’ll say an apology I never got to give was to Pop Smoke’s mom,” he said. “I’ll say I never really got to apologize to her. And you know, an apology not gonna change nothing and she probably don’t wanna hear it but I always say the situation was never supposed to go like that. He’s not my enemy.”
He continued: “I don’t really know that man from a can of paint so it’s like, what happened, what occurred was not personal. It was just on some young ni\*\*as getting money. I chase a bag, I get money. That’s what I do. Things happen, things go bad. It’s not an excuse but things go bad and when things go bad, you gotta do clean up control. So we gotta clean up our mess and sh\*t happens. It’s not personal. So I’ll just say that.”
Of the four people involved in Pop Smoke’s murder, only two were adults. Corey Walker, who was 19 at the time, was sentenced for his role in 2025 and received 29 years behind bars. Keandre Rodgers, who was 18 at the time, was initially charged with murder, though his case is now being reassessed, according to NME.
Blockstar was sentenced to four years and two months in juvenile detention after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter and home invasion burglary. He was released after receiving credit for time served, shortly after his 2023 conviction.
Deijae Jester, who was 15 at the time, was the youngest of the four. Jester was the one who ultimately shot the Brooklyn rapper three times in the back, a detail authorities learned from a recorded call while he was behind bars.
Jester was serving time for the murder at a Los Angeles County juvenile detention facility, where he would have been released at 25 under California law. In August, however, he was sentenced to four years in county jail for smuggling fentanyl into the detention center.
Watch Blockstar’s full video below. His apology to Pop Smoke’s mother comes at the 10:36 mark.
