French Montana is a 38 year old rapper from Casablanca, Morocco who came up as a close Max B associate. He would then go on to drop 9 mixtapes until Puff Daddy signed him to Bad Boy Entertainment in late 2011, where French has made himself home ever since dropping 4 albums & 6 more tapes. Every album he’s put out thus far haven’t been as well received as his mixtapes, but I was very intrigued to hear that Harry Fraud would be fully producing French’s 5th album in it’s entirety given how well the producer/rapper pair have worked with one another in the past.
“Blue Chills” opens up the album with some hi-hats & a Skylar Gudasz sample as French declares that he’s coming for those who’re trying to escape him whereas “Rushmore Pack” works in a soulful instrumental talking about how lies don’t faze him & that he ain’t the same Montana as before. The hottest rapper in Detroit right now Babyface Ray for “Drive By” flipping “Swan” by Ionna Gika explaining that everything they do is mega leading into EST G. coming into the picture for the energized “Keep It Real” telling their shorties that keeping it 100 is better than being perfect.
Meanwhile on “Kind of Girl”, we have French & Rick Ross on top of a Lou Courtney sample describing their taste in woman just before “Higher” flips Everton Blender to talk about dying for the paper. “Bricks & Bags” with Benny the Butcher & Jadakiss finds the trio over a grittier beat detailing their d-boy lifestyles, but then “Poetic with No Justice” embraces a symphony to talk about dreaming filthy.
“Drop Top” with Quavo incorporates a chilling vocal sample so they can get materialistic while the song “Shorty So Bad” is just an annoyingly airy love ballad. The penultimate track “Drunk Words, Sober Thoughts” with the late Chinx goes full-blown boom bap throwing some piano chords into the mix talking about how no one can fuck with them & “Bronx Mecca” closes it all out by flipping There’s a Ghost” by Fleurie with French getting vulnerable lyrically.
A lot of people like to reasonably clown this dude for his most recent output, but I seriously don’t see how anyone can come away from Montega looking at it as his most consistent body of work in a very long time. Harry Fraud’s sample heavy production is a breath of fresh air considering that his last 4 albums were just chockfull of generic pop rap & the performances from French’s performances himself actually sound decent.
Score: 3.5/5
Legends Will Never Die 