French Montana on His New Documentary: ‘A Lot of Immigrants Are Going to See Themselves in This Story’
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A rapper escaping difficult circumstances to triumph as an artist is a deeply American story and a hip-hop archetype. French Montana is expanding that dynamic with For Khadija, a documentary about his family’s 1996 emigration from Morocco to the Bronx.
The documentary, debuting at the Tribeca Film Festival tonight, chronicles a remarkable story: having to give up his college hoop dreams because he didn’t have a green card, turning to the streets when he saw few other options available, then finding a way out through music and his Cocaine City DVDs, where he conducted raw, on-the-street interviews with artists like 50 Cent and Young Jeezy. The Mandon Lovett-directed story also focuses heavily on his mother, Khadija Guled, who stayed in America to raise French and his two brothers, Zach and Ayoub, after their father, who brought the family to the Big Apple, experienced some hard luck and headed back to Africa.
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“[The doc] has a lot to do with my music,” French says, “but it’s mostly an immigrant story about a mother that struggled for 20-something years and didn’t see her family to make sure her kids is good.” The release is paired with a PSA about resources for fellow immigrants made in partnership with Informed Immigrant, which provides support for undocumented individuals and families in the U.S.
French is planning an official soundtrack that he says will feature documentary participants and “whoever was part of my career” — including Rick Ross and Kodak Black. The documentary, executive-produced by Drake and Sean “Diddy” Combs, features commentary from both music icons as well as Fat Joe and French’s currently incarcerated best friend Max B, who was cleared to participate from East Jersey State Prison.
While the bulk of the film is about Khadija, and includes her commentary, French says she didn’t know what she was recording for — and that she’s seemingly so unaware of pop culture that the Tribeca premiere will be a surprise for her. French talked to Rolling Stone about his mother, his come-up in the Bronx rap scene, and why immigration affects us all.
One thing that the documentary does well is it shows you as an uptown hero in the Bronx, while you also have a whole country behind you in Morocco. How different does love feel for you in the Bronx versus in Morocco?
I feel like it’s the same. Morocco is a whole different culture and nobody makes it out of there. You get the love after you work hard in the Bronx. This is the mecca of hip-hop. When I came from Africa, you got to think of Tupac, Biggie, Jay-Z, and Nas. It was like the ‘96 Chicago Bulls. It was like me trying to rap was a joke, [as] a kid who just came from Africa. Embracing the love from [the Bronx] and the love in Africa is a wonderful thing. It was a great journey, man. It’s a journey that seems impossible, but everything seems impossible until the fool come along and do it.
How did it end up as part of the Tribeca Film Festival? Was that the first plan after you wrapped filming?
We was aiming for the Moroccan Film Festival first, but once we got it done, we all watched it, and it brought tears to people’s eyes. We were like, “We got to put this in the biggest platform we can.”
How did your mother feel about being a part of the documentary?
My mother didn’t even know what we was filming for, honestly. I told her that I was filming about my life, and she was like, “Let’s do it.” She’s going to support her son, but honestly she still hasn’t seen it. I’m making it a surprise for her, for Tribeca to see it.
I’m African American, and some parts of our community don’t think immigration is a Black issue. Some of us think it’s just a Latino issue. I’m wondering if you speak to how your story demonstrates that immigration is an issue that does affect the Black community and the African community.
Immigration affects anybody that doesn’t have an equal opportunity — and haven’t done no crime. Criminals that go to jail for murder come home and still have a better opportunity than the immigrant that came from another country with a dream of making this land a better land.
I felt like if [someone] wasn’t here before Christopher Columbus, then you know, [they] shouldn’t have no right to say who should get what type of privilege in this country. Immigrants built most of this country. It’s the hunger, it’s coming in here with their own visions and adding different flavors. What’s New York without going to get a pizza from the Italians down the street? Or going to get Jamaican food or Haitian food? These beautiful cultures are what make the states. It would be wack just to have one culture in New York City.
People who don’t know what immigrants go through should watch this. They’re going to see this type of struggle I went through. And a lot of immigrants are going to see themselves in this story. And we planning to make a change on that, or at least spark the brain of the person that can make a change.
Growing up, did you see people having trouble with ICE or being deported?
Firsthand, my little brother got deported dealing with ICE. [I saw trouble occur for] all my friends in school, all my African friends from around the way. [I knew people who] would scrape their fingerprints off their hands just so they don’t get deported.
What were some of the biggest challenges while creating a documentary?
You only get to capture [the story] one time. You could do a part two because I think my life is going to need a part two. But part one is like your first album. It’s giving people the real, especially when nobody has done it before. A lot of immigrants have success, but I don’t think that anybody reached [my] level here after spending half their life in Africa. Some people might have made it, but I don’t think they made a documentary that touched on it.
So I had to make sure it was the right material, the right story, not too much glorifying all the success and the highlights. And [I made sure it was] showing the struggle it took to get here and the solutions, what worked for me. Because anybody could come in and give you the success story, but how did you get there?
What do you think some of the highlights of part two would be?
Hopefully getting my brother back home after getting deported. Me overcoming all the alcohol, the drugs. The second phase of my career. People usually do documentaries when they done with their career. I chose to do it in the middle of my career because [of] the story that I’m giving to the people [who] have nothing.
What’s your brother’s status?
He’s doing good. I just got off the phone with him, and he’s working on getting his papers so he can come back. But he been [in Morocco] for a couple of years. And it happens that [you] get in trouble. I got in trouble, and [with] Allah’s help I didn’t get deported. But it is a thing that’s real that’s happening to everybody, especially when Donald Trump put his foot down on ICE and they was picking up people and sending people back. Some people got snatched away from their families, and they was the providers. Now the family’s left alone.
How did you go about getting Max B cleared to be in a documentary?
We just made a phone call to the correctional facility and they was more than happy, man. I think everybody wanted this story to come out to the people because it’s a real fucking story. People witnessed us come up together, witnessed the struggle, witnessed me seeing my best friend get 75 years. It takes you to the time and it shows you that we’re still here to try and make a difference.
Is there any update you could offer on when he might be coming home?
He was supposed to come home this year, but they say he got in trouble. I told him to tell his fans, [and] I guess he just spoke to them. I guess they added a little bit of time to his [sentence], but he’s going to come home and do his thing. When he comes home, it’s a movie.
At the beginning of the documentary you said, “I’m not a superhero, I just run with a passion when I get a rush for something.” When was that first rush for you?
When I made my first freestyle over Jay-Z’s “Lyrical Exercise.” I used to listen to [Cormega’s “Dead Man Walking”], so I loved how Jay-Z flipped [the same sample]. I did a freestyle to it and I was walking through the neighborhood letting whoever listen to it. Everybody [was] like, “Yo, it sound crazy.” That was the first rush, because I knew that music was something I could do day in and night out. And it was like, “All right, I got to start fueling my rush every day.” That’s what I’ve been doing ever since. I never had a rush from nothing else. They used to try to make me work at places, but even in Africa, my escape route was music. There was always a rush from that. It’s almost like you did it in your past life. Certain things you can’t control. It’s something that hit your soul.
There’s a part in the documentary where you mention having a hard time assimilating into the New York hip-hop scene. What did that resistance look like?
I came to the Bronx in ’96. Down the street you got KRS-One, up the block, you got Afrika Bambaataa, you got Slick Rick. Hip-Hop might seem like it’s just a genre of music, but it’s really a family of people that have to accept you. It was like, “Yo, who’s co-signing you to get in?” It’s like you almost have to come in through somebody.
I didn’t have that coming up. I remember Big Pun used to come to my block. I used to be with his cousin Booby the Boxer. He used to have this custom-made seat in the Benz and he’d play Capital Punishment, play us a bunch of music before it came out. I remember not knowing how big Big Pun was going to be. You would hear stories. But now I was seeing these things happen in front of my eyes. I could really touch this person. That made a whole difference in the Bronx rap culture, which is a big part.
Fat Joe would come and take us to City Island. Joe didn’t even know who I was. I’m just there because I’m there with Booby the Boxer. We would go to Jimmy’s Bronx Cafe. I was beginning to see these people and touch these people, and that made a whole difference for me because now it’s like, “OK, they bleed just like me,” and I’m like, “Yo, I got to make this happen.” So I started here and there with the DVDs and with the music. I had to battle like crazy. Whoever could rap would come to my block, [and] we would battle for money. I would lose money. I would win money. I would just keep battling. So to make it through those offenses was the hardest thing ever. I wasn’t one of them artists that found a record and didn’t have to go through the ropes. I went through every step of the way as a rapper.
It took me about 10 years to drop my first album. We started 2003 with the first DVD because nobody wanted to co-sign me. So I had to go and create my own lane, which was the DVDs, and put myself on them. And when that happened, we started dropping volume after volume every year. Then that’s when I got my first deal with Akon. Then after that, then that’s when me and [my close rap peers] Chinx and Max linked up and the sky was the limit.
Do you feel like the journalistic mindset you had with Cocaine City serves you as an artist in terms of staying on the pulse of music?
The Cocaine City DVDs was me going to college [and] studying all the artists. We would drop a DVD and it would be about 30 artists in it. The year after, only three of them artists would still be making music.
So it’s a lot of things you learn that you just take and sum it up and add your own twist to it, and it helped. I wasn’t closed into my own space and thought I knew everything. I never talked to the people that got all the answers. I always talked to the people that got all the questions because I’m trying to have all the questions too. A lot of times I fell on my face thinking I knew everything.
I would learn from everybody, from the smallest artists to the biggest artists I would learn and study [them]. And I felt like that’s what kept me relevant for all these years. I was just chilling with Luh Tyler the other day. He’s 17 years old. I dropped my first DVD in 2003 — the first DVD is older than him. That’s like 19, 20 years. I might have not been as famous the whole time, but I’ve been in the game doing what I love, happily, and experiencing the world because of a passion that came from my soul. Who the fuck would have knew?
Given your success in the music industry, do you feel like you’re the most successful battle rapper from that early-2000s New York scene?
I wouldn’t say that. Battle rap is considered its own sport now. There are artists that all they do is battle rap. They don’t care about making music. So it’s almost like saying, “I was the best street baller, I’m in the NBA now.” It’s two different things.
I put it to you like this: Murda Mook and all those people will be considered the Peewee Kirklands and the Karlton Hines’. You get what I’m saying? It’s like street legends. But there would be Kevin Durant that would go to Rucker and play a couple games and do things like that. But I wouldn’t consider myself as a battle rapper because that’s what Murda Mook did his whole career. I only did that for a spare time. I did that to get on; once I got on, the battle rap was over. It was just a stepping stone.
There’s a part in the documentary where your friend mentioned that you were making videos of yourself playing basketball to send to colleges. How did you first get good with making videos and the tech involved?
It always went back to music and me watching And1 mixtapes. I was like, “Yo, basketball was dope. But when you add the hip-hop culture to it becomes a lifestyle.” So one thing blended with another, and I would put highlights with me dunking and crossing people over and play whatever was hot at the time under it, whether it was DMX or 50 Cent or [someone else].
That was the era when Allen Iverson came out, when all these people came out and it was just cool to be a basketball player or a rapper or this and that. But I was sending it to D1 colleges and trying to get in. But then that’s when I got crushed, when they was like “it don’t matter how many highlights you could put on this tape, you’re not documented and you would not be able to get a scholarship.”
So you had people film you on the block specifically so you could turn them into mixtapes?
Yeah. I remember at one time I made so many I started selling them. I always had the hustle in me, but everything came from trying something that didn’t make sense at the time. From the tapes I went to the DVDs of me still editing, then doing this, to me doing that. It all started from the idea of the, “Yo, let’s do this. Let me do this myself.”
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