French Montana looks out the window, taking it all in. Ahead of us the city comes into focus, thousands of low, white buildings stretching flatly in the haze. We speed through gendarme checkpoints, uniformed guards waving us on. He's in that fleeting zone where just by doing things they become news.Ĭoming into Casablanca, the road is fast and empty and lined on both sides by a pale, straw-colored landscape. French's 2012 has been charmed: his recent habit of wearing colorful Versace scarves as headgear led to an invitation from GQ to come style the magazine's editors "fanute"-an inadvertent slang term he slurred into existence on his "Stay Schemin'" verse-was subject to an exegesis in The New York Times Magazine. His slurry, amiable voice is a rap radio constant-that's his sleepy drawl on the hook of Rick Ross's " Stay Schemin," on last year's Lords of the Underground-checking "Shot Caller," on the lilting, menacing Waka Flocka Flame collaboration "Choppa Choppa Down." "Pop That," Excuse My French's antic strip club anthem featuring Drake, Lil Wayne and Rick Ross, recently landed in the Top 40. He makes up for what he lacks in finesse with a keen sense of timing and purpose. There is a kind of blunt efficiency to what he does: rap reduced to exclamation points and full-stop periods. He is a New York rapper with a vaguely Southern cadence, a man of a few simple words from a city that continues to idolize complexity, even as the genre as a whole has long since turned towards unhinged ad-libs and non-sequitur boasts.
There are artists who come along from time to time that seem to embody a moment, and in 2012, French Montana is one of them. Today, French Montana has a joint deal with Diddy's Bad Boy Records and Rick Ross's Maybach Music Group and a debut album, tentatively titled Excuse My French, due out this fall. That may or may not have been true then, but it's pretty close to true now. "By the fourth volume, everybody knew who I was," he says. French Montana made sure to get on camera too.
POP THAT FRENCH MONTANA ALBUM COVER SERIES
They knew plenty of former and current drug dealers and a handful of rappers, so they enlisted, he says, "whoever was legendary" to star in a series of DVDs they decided to call Cocaine City. Karim Kharbouch became French Montana sometime around 2002, when he and a friend noticed the growing market for street DVDs and began making their own. "You do dirt to people and people try to do dirt to you," he says philosophically, and that's about as specific about that day as he's willing to get. Today he'll show you the twin scars on the back of his head where the bullet that nearly killed him entered and exited.
Whatever other money they had came from Karim, and he did what he could to provide, legally and illegally, risking not just jail but deportation. His father lasted two years in New York before returning to Casablanca. The young Karim learned English in the streets and in the Bronx high schools-Lehman, then Roosevelt-that he attended before dropping out. He left with his mother, father Abdela and little brother Zack for the South Bronx when he was 13 and, until today, has never been back. "But it's too dirty." Instead, he climbs in the back of a black van, and heads for the city he used to call home.īorn Karim Kharbouch, French Montana spent his first 13 years on a sprawling family estate just outside Casablanca. "I was gonna come down and kiss the ground," he says apologetically. French Montana, wearing sweatpants and slippers, a tattoo that reads "Pray For Me" on his neck, scuffs the parking lot pavement. Vapor from the nearby Atlantic Ocean spreads out in a haze across the sky, diffusing the morning sun to a glare. Lil Wayne, Drake, Rihanna, and French partied it up at LIV nightclub at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach, along with the rest of the Urban Beach Week crowd.Outside Casablanca's Mohammad V airport, there are dusty palm trees and low bushes prickly with violet flowers. It was rumored that P Diddy would drop by the set, but he was a no-show.Īfter shooting, it was all play. Flanked with bikini-clad models, he skateboarded in and out of his scenes, and delivered a fantastic performance take after take. He was the first featured artist to arrive, and had the most energy out of everyone on set. By the way ladies, he wears black boxer-briefs – just in case you were wondering. Rihanna was on the sidelines for moral support, watching Drake behind the scenes, and chatting it up with his entourage.ĭrake seemed relaxed, stopping between takes to chat with friends, play ping-pong, and change in and out of his outfits.
The video features the first single off French Montana’s debut album ‘Excuse My French’, due July 17. Lil Wayne, Rick Ross and French Montana were all in Miami for Urban Beach Week, and Drake flew in on Sunday for the shoot. All this in the suburbs of Miami during Urban Beach Week.
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