The best resource for him would probably be to listen to the current pop music out there. Depending on what particular forms of pop he is into, he may want to check out Blackwell and Jordan (as mentioned above) as well as ?uestlove, JD Blair, and many others. Instead of focusing on specific drummers, he should probably listen more to just the artists out there, and see how the studio drummers they use are working with their tunes.
There is actually a LOT of cool drumming in pop music right now. KT Tunstall and Feist are two artists that come immediately to mind that have a lot of neat percussion/drumming in them. But honestly, even a lot of radio songs, if you really get into the meat of them, have cool drum parts. I recently learned 1000 Miles by Vanessa Carlton for a cover band I work with. That is a funky little drum part. Tons of rolls on the hi hats, accented upbeats on the ride's bell, etc. When you just mindlessly listen to it, you may think it's just silly pop, but in fact, there is a LOT going on behind the drums. Sara Bareilles is another straight up pop artist with a ton of cool drum parts in her music.
Heck, check out live versions of the Jonas Brothers "Burnin' Up." When they don't have "Big Rob" or whatever the guy who raps on it is called, they actually throw a drum solo in over where the silly rap part is. The solo, as well as a lot of the fills played live, are really cool, really unique, and funky.
this. Pop isn't a genre. Saying "I want to be a master of pop" is like saying "i want to be a master of purple". It just doesn't make sense
Sure it makes sense. Saying you want to be a master of pop is no different than saying you want to be a rock god, or a jazz giant. All three are styles that are very broad, very vague, but still have a loose definition. You can argue that the definition of pop has changed over time, but the truth is, so has the definition of rock, so has the definition of jazz. When fusion first came out, it was not considered a form of jazz at all. Now it is, and is often known as "jazz fusion" (this is true to the point that when Miles released Bitches Brew, it was called a "rock" album, because it certainly didn't fit the definition of jazz at that time). Same with rock. What we now call oldies music was once rock...but very few people would listen to "That'll Be The Day" by Buddy Holly now and say that it is a rock song. Genre definitions change over time, but that doesn't mean you can't want to be a master of one, at the time that you are in.