Either you get hip to what’s going on or you get left with the dinosaurs. Man, it’s actually something I got used to. What’s that dynamic like for you as a veteran in the game? Those lines have kind of been blurred now. You came up in the 2000s, where the mixtapes were actual tapes sold on the street, and the albums were the albums. Sometimes you out here trying to make your money and you forget to rest your body. I spent time away just to focus on my health, especially my mental health. My son is getting older, so I was being a father. What have you been up to the past few years? When asked for comment, French declined to talk about the lawsuit.) We caught up with French to talk about They Got Amnesia, his friend Pop Smoke, and how the game has changed. (Not all has been tranquil during French’s mini-hibernation - last year, he and his business partner were sued for allegedly sexually assaulting an intoxicated woman. (French was even supposed to hang out with Pop Smoke the night before he was killed.) French shows chutzpah in his songwriting, too he’s motivated, and it’s his best record since 2012’s Mac and Cheese 3 tape. As does Pop Smoke, a friend with whom French recorded frequently. Features are prevalent: Lil Durk, Doja Cat, 42 Dugg, and Saweetie make appearances, among many others. They Got Amnesia follows a blueprint French set up during Obama’s second term, when he showed he was one of hip-hop’s premier collaborative artists. Despite a few underwhelming verses and some trend-hopping in the years since, New Yorkers with Yankee hats who thrive off of disgust have not forgotten French Montana. The Cocaine City DVDs functioned as a documentary for the New York streets, and Montana and Max kept New York afloat when Roc-a-Fella had disbanded and G-Unit had started bickering like the Roy family (with 50 being Logan). If Max was the street legend of the 2000s, Gotham’s crooning and rapping vocalist, French – who was raised in Morocco before moving to New York as a teenager – was its muscle, with a South Bronx-dizzy delivery that would get him signed to Puff Daddy’s Bad Boy Records. But anyone who remembers, say, 2009’s Coke Wave - his collaborative tape with Max B, an East Coast version of what Thug and Rich Homie Quan are to the South - recognizes French as a highly significant New York figure. Montana’s new album, They Got Amnesia, plays on the idea that some rap fans sleep on his work. He quit drinking after being hospitalized in 2019 for exhaustion - or, as he put it, “turning up too much.” “I felt like they have had amnesia about my accomplishments.” The rapper spent the past couple of years out of the spotlight, in part to focus on fatherhood, in part to focus on his health. This is what it is.‘’I was saying that they had amnesia about everything: The Cocaine City DVDs, the Coke Boys era, from Chinx to the Max B collaborations,” French Montana tells me. I don’t need nobody to come and bring no energy here. It’s the 45 years it took me to make this.’ You know what I’m saying? So that’s where I’m at in life. And, it was like, ‘Yo, why you charging me $4 million for this 15-minute painting?’ He was like, ‘It’s not about the 15 minutes. But he charged homeboy $4 million for it. He was like 45 years old, and he was making this painting, and he made it in 15 minutes. “This is the album I always wanted to make,” he said. “You know what I’m saying? And why I say that is just I was watching this artist. “And I’d be like, ‘Yo, you don’t even drink.’ He’d like, ‘Man, I got to act drunk with these people.’ I like, ‘Yo, I got to learn from that.’”Įlsewhere in the interview, French spoke on the unwarranted criticism surrounding his catalog, working with the late Pop Smoke, his previous beef with Jim Jones, and his newly released project, They Got Amnesia. “Like, yo, they act like they drinking with you … Like how Akon used to be with the Shirley Temple acting drunk?” he said. ![]() ![]() French said he was initially baffled by other artists who managed to achieve so much while partying hard-that is, until he realized some of these stars were putting on an act.
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