In an era where the south is for the most part dominating hip hop, isn't it about time that the east coast makes a triumphant comeback? To show the world where this hip hop thing started. Not saying that the east coast has been dead but let's just say it got thrown at the back of the bus and forgotten about. It's time for the new wave of New York MC's to take a stand and reclaim their dominance from the past. Could French Montana be one of the ones to lead the charge? Only time will tell I suppose. Though French has been in the game for about six years, he's very new to mainstream world and can be heard on a lot of radio favorites today. After 21 mixtape releases since 2007, here he is finally with his major label debut album Excuse My French. Now I'll admit, my expectations for this was kinda low. I'm not a big fan of his and based off of music that I've already heard from him I wasn't expecting this album to be anything great. But honestly, this album wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. Still however, it's just average. Other than three specific songs which I'll mention in a moment, the production was basic and generic. The same old repetitive trap beats. On top of that, French Montana's flow is not all that great either. He's sounds like he's lagging at times. Like he's lazy rapping or something. Constantly yelling out that "hahhh!" ad-lib doesn't make it any better either. It also sounds like he says the same shit on every track. Word for word. Lyrically his vocabulary is limited apparently. Well here's what I did like. Right when I heard the intro track "Once In A While", that's when I knew this album might exceed what I expected. It was pretty good. It's actually the most aggressive he sounded on the entire album. His flow kind of sounded like 50 Cent back in the day. If he sounded like this throughout the whole thing it probably would have been a much better project. My favorite track overall definitely was "We Go Where Ever We Want". He had a lot of interesting samples on this album and this was one of them. He samples the instrumental from Raekwon's classic hit "Ice Cream". So it was only right for him to get Raekwon himself as a feature on the track. He delivered a dope verse. Ne-Yo delivered a great hook as well."Fuck What Happens Tonight" really surprised me. The track features Ace Hood, Snoop Dogg, Mavado, surprisingly Scarface and ad-libs from DJ Khaled. I thought this was sound like typical DJ Khaled foolery but it was far from that. Beat Bully puts together a fantastic instrumental, Mavado provides a good hook, and everyone for the most part delivered good verses. Songs like "Paranoid", "Throw It In The Bag" and "Marble Floors" I had to listen to a few times each before I could say that I actually like them. Each one has those same trap beats that I mentioned before but to an extent they were all tolerable. "Throw It In The Bag" would have to be my favorite out of the three if I had to pick. "Ocho Cinco" I only like because of the hilarious hook that went like "told that bitch to give me head...Ocho Cinco". I got some entertainment out of that and found myself actually liking it. Now on to my dis-likes. Right off the back...the singles. "Freaks" was poorly done. Honestly I actually like the sampling of Chaka Demus & Pliers's "Murder She Wrote". But the hook was not that good to me. Nicki Minaj's horrible guest verse just made it worse. I could see club hoppers and people into dance hall/reggae liking it but it does nothing for me. "Pop That" was in short...bad. Terrible lyrics from everyone featured and a below average beat. The Luke sample is the only thing that made it a hit. Speaking of, apparently French must be a huge fan of Luke because he samples him again on "Bust It Open". If you put two and two together, the title and the Luke sampling then you pretty much have a idea what direction this song goes in. The song was an epic mess. Too many breaks or pauses between lines and again, another generic ass drum beat. This is so uncharacteristic of a east coast rapper. "Ain't Worried About Nothin" basically told me that French gave no fucks about making a good song. I absolutely loathe repetitive hooks and this is one of the worst ones yet. The whole song is nothing but "nigga I ain't worried about nothin" repeated over and over. Terrible. "Gifted" sounded more like The Weeknd featuring French Montana. Dude took up the whole song singing. Kinda like what he did to Drake on "Crew Love". I really don't like his voice that much so that kinda grinded my gears. Overall, like I mentioned this was a slight bit better than what I was expecting but still borderline average. Average beats, average lyrics, average everything mostly. I give it a final grade of a C. There's no doubt that French Montana is a hit maker. This album proves it. For that, and also for him being under Diddy's wing, he'll be around for a while. It's just people like myself want more, or better from what I'm hearing now. Let's hope as he grows his music grows and matures too. End.
Final Grade: C
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