French Montana has been a staple of the rap game for nearly two decades.
From his earliest days releasing Cocaine City DVDs as Young French, to his handful of smash hits featuring the likes of Drake, Lil Wayne, Rick Ross and some of the biggest rappers in the game, to his most recent album, They Got Amnesia, the Morocco native is an inerasable figure in hip hop and has been since 2002.
However, while the “Mac & Cheese” rapper has experienced some of hip hop’s highest highs, Montana has survived some of life’s most intense lows.
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Landing in the ICU twice due to complications from alcohol and drug use, the 37-year-old’s health was compromised on multiple occasions, and in a recent appearance on Ebro Darden’s Rap Life Radio show, Montana spoke about the difficulties of watching his peers surpass him while dealt with real-life issues.
“It’s hard,” he told Ebro. “I’m going to celebrate, but right now, I just, I want to stay laser-sharp to focus on getting some things out the way. That is like certain time. What I realize about people that be affected by those kind of things, sometime the train pass you and you don’t even realize it.”
Along with the acknowledgement that alcohol caused him to miss a couple of opportunities, Montana said that a lot of artists and people in the music industry fake being drunk to keep up appearances.
“You chasing the high instead of chasing that train that you should be on. You know what I mean? I feel like I seen a lot of my peers that came from less fortunate places and accomplished so many things,” he said. “I feel like I could have been… I’ve been seeing a lot of my peers that just surpassed me and I’m like, ‘Yo, how they doing it?’ Yo, they act like they drinking with you… Like how Akon used to be with the Shirley Temple acting drunk. And I’d be like, ‘Yo, you don’t even drink.’ He’d like, ‘Man, I got to act drunk with these people.’ I’m like, ‘Yo, I got to learn from that.'”
Check out Montana’s full interview with Ebro below and let us know what you think down in the comments.