He’s a charisma vacuum, one who has little to no talent when it comes to providing any semblance of allure to his music other than, you guessed it, the impressive list of guests he can still reliably assemble. He suffocates his verses with dead air, often rapping only one syllable at a time and filling empty space with overplayed adlibs - which will eventually build toward some lame punchline about oral sex, followed by a shout-out to Max B. Simply put, there’s no possible way that French Montana could ever make any part of his lavish lifestyle sound authentically exciting he’s far too monotone, too awkward, too bland a performer to ever stimulate. He keeps insisting that “ I don’t really care ,” patently untrue given the song’s conception, but what should be a carefree sentiment ends up bitter and conceited - he comes off as a bothersome curmudgeon, sitting on his throne and angrily stewing over his perceived lack of respect from afar.
Ignoring the glaringly obvious marketing tactics employed here to stir up non-existent hype - mighty convenient that this interaction occurred right as French was finishing his fourth studio album - it does raise an important question: just what exactly are the many triumphs of French Montana? Since we’ve seemingly forgotten about all of his accomplishments, he goes ahead and lists them rather humorlessly on a shameless rip-off of Big Sean’s “I Don’t Fuck With You”: he has a lot of money, he’s dated a lot of celebrities, he’s friends with a lot of celebrities, he’s apparently influenced Travis Scott’s creative decisions all of these trivial auto-biographical details are sprinkled throughout, but they lack any sense of real lived-in specificity to make them stick. “For the next game, you need to name FIVE French Montana songs without features.” It was this challenge - issued to the world in the form of a Squid Game Twitter meme - that more or less kicked off the publicity campaign for They Got Amnesia, where an ever-cross French swiftly responded by naming 14 of his solo tracks (including the first single for this album, what a lucky coincidence) and claiming that the listening public at large has collective memory loss when it comes to the Moroccan rapper’s many decorated achievements. He distills his philosophy most appropriately on “Appreciate Everything” when he raps, “I don’t count the haters, make the haters count.The only thing They Got Amnesia proves is why we all forgot about French Montana in the first place. It’s a project that declares French is going to continue doing him, with or without help, even in the instance that he might be needled by a little internet trolling. Topically, They Got Amnesia is the French Montana fans have long loved (“Business,” “Bag Season,” “Striptease”), but also with a tiny chip on his shoulder (see “I Don’t Really Care” for an eyebrow-raising audit of the MC's tabloid-worthy dating history). It is produced largely by the ever dependable hitmaking producer Hitmaka. The project’s guest list reads like a who’s who of hip-hop playlisting, including Rick Ross, Kodak Black, Lil Durk, Pop Smoke, Doja Cat, Saweetie, Fivio Foreign, Coi Leray, Ty Dolla $ign, and Latto, to name a few. Setting the record straight online was easy enough, but with They Got Amnesia, French is making sure we know what he’s capable of in real time.
The project’s title could be related to an October 2021 Twitter spat where a user challenged followers to “name FIVE French Montana songs without features.” French himself responded, rattling off 14 of his favorite solo records. When he decided to call his fourth proper album They Got Amnesia, however, French Montana’s mood was anything but forgiving. Over the course of an exceptionally prolific career, his voice has appeared alongside friends so often that one could be forgiven for forgetting that the Bronx-hailing MC is perfectly capable of holding it down by himself. His catalog is steeped in blockbuster collaborations with heavyweights like Drake, Swae Lee, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj, and The Weeknd. It’s no secret that French Montana works well with others.
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