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French Montana is neither from France or Montana, but instead is an American emcee whom was born in Morroco, so maybe a more appropriate name would be Rocco Americana, but that’s neither here nor there. What you do need to know about French Montana, is that 1) he came up in the mixtape game, working heavily with Action Bronson producer Harry Fraud (though you’d never know it, as he is notably absent on this album) 2) he’s signed to Bad Boy and 3) he makes detrimental-to-society-300-lb-dudes-standing-on-table-rap. That’s it, in a nutshell.


With his major label debut, Excuse My French (we would have went with The French Connection, but hey), the question is raised as whether or not French will carry on a legacy started by Biggie, or rather go the route of so many other failed Bad Boy artists, such as Yung Joc, Black Rob, or G-Dep.


French carries himself with a level of cool confidence that gentlemen like Rick Ross and DJ Khaled also have, which will likely allow him to stay in the rap game much longer than he should, far over-extending his welcome. That being said, it’s not the music that will keep him relevant, as his lazy flow and repetitive hooks (“”Bust It Open, “I Told Em”) show little in the way of innovation or staying power. I mean, this is Neanderthal-full-retard-rap at it’s worst, but you just might find yourself saying “Molly and Aquafina!” out loud the next time “Ain’t Worried About Nothin’” comes on and you are drunk in the club. Hey, we do it too.


The best track on this album is “Fuck What Happens Tonight”, some brooding music-to-drive-by, driven by a haunting Mavado hook, alongside guest shots from Snoop Dogg, Scarface, and Ace Hood. Yet in this day-and-age of kindergarten school shootings and babies catching stray bullets, it’s hard to justify listening to this kind of thing and not feeling some kind of remorse; especially when you don’t have to.


But being that this is the best thing the album has to offer, it’s next best trick is obviously the previously released club smash, “Pop That”, which is arguably one of the hottest tracks of the moment. Yet what these two tracks have in common is that they are dominated by their guests, pretty much red flagging that the album’s best tracks feature as little French as possible. What does that tell you?


It’s clear that the rest of the album – much of it drug game / hoe slapping / murder rap bravado – is actually the kind of music that French wants to make, not singles like the commercially viable “Pop That”, or it’s follow-up “Freaks”, which isn’t half bad. The same can be said for “We Go Where Ever We Want” with Ne-Yo and Raekwon. But what can also be said about the most listenable moments on the album, is that they are – in true Bad Boy fashion – jackings of songs we actually like; Chaka Demus & Pliers “Murder She Wrote” and Rae’s own “Ice Cream”. What does that tell you?


What it tells us is that the music industry is broken, designed by folks that pat one another on the back and tell each other that the product they are pushing is good, when it’s actually terrible. Sure, French may end up like Rick Ross, by finding his lane and actually creating some decent music, but this is one poor Excuse.

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7 Responses to "French Montana – “Excuse My French” – @@ (Review)"
  • Restless says:

    Finally you guys give an honest review about a major label release. Most of the time the reviews try to convince us that their good when they’re mostly @ and @@

  • DollarDan says:

    Seems you guys are getting lazy. I´ve Always loved the input from you guys and discovered alot of great artists from visiting your page but nowadays you just seem “to cool for school”, just cause you have a major label release dont mean you suck. First of all to call harry Fraud the Action Bronson producer is to diminish the body of work of one of the greatest producers of this day (and i love Action Bronson). The work French has done alongside H.F comming up is both versatile and very creative. The same goes for this album. I agree that its not bangin the whole way thru but compared to alot of artists getting 4@ and 5@ ratings by you i must say French put in alot of creativity you just don´t hear from artists these days. Songs like “Once in a while”, “Paranoid”, “Gifted” and “I told em” are all great songs and to say they simply are “jackings of songs” just make you look like you´ve been living under a rock the latest decade or more. Hip hop is an ever evolving entity and to expect everybody to sound like Ghost, Rae, Nas or whoever you prefer makes me feel like its time for me to move on and quit visiting this page in the future. I´m 30 plus and love all the great Music created in the 80´s and 90´s but i also love to see where Hip hop can go, and unfortunately this seems like the wrong outlet for that.

  • Comments (7)

    khordkutta

    May 31st, 2013 at 1:49 am