“For Khadija” is billed as a documentary about French Montana, but there’s a reason that it’s named not after the hip-hop alter ego of Moroccan expatriate Karim Kharbouch, but his mother. “I felt like my mother’s story, the beginning to the end, the closure of her going back to Morocco, is when I was like, okay, now the story has a meaning,” French tells PvNew. “This goes out to all the mothers that struggle, that have kids, that was forced to sacrifice.”
Given the other films made about rappers and their families — including “Dear Mama,” about Afeni and Tupac Shakur and “Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell,” which heavily features Notorious B.I.G.’s mother Violetta Wallace — it’s not necessarily an unexpected place to start. But the documentary, which premieres June 16 at the Tribeca film Festival, uses the relationship between Karim and Khadija to highlight the unpredictable path that led a scrappy Moroccan child to become a worldwide rap star, while charting the financial struggles and familial strife that threatened to derail his meteoric rise.
Ahead of the festival premiere of director Mandon Lovett’s “For Khadija,” French jumped on a Zoom call to talk about his original impulse to participate in a documentary about his life, discussed how early musical inspirations inspired his style and subject matter as a rapper, and hinted at a few of the elements he held back on showing this time — but might show up in a sequel.
Was telling the story of your life and career through this documentary something you were eager to do?
I wanted to do it when it was right. Some artists will come and they have a successful year, and they would drop a documentary or some artists would have a great moment and drop a documentary. I didn’t want my documentary to be based on a moment or a trophy or an award or a reality show. I wanted my documentary to represent the struggle and what an immigrant from another country will go through. And you don’t have to be an immigrant. You could be somebody striving to be something that just seems so impossible. And I felt like my mother’s story, the beginning to the end, the closure of her going back to Morocco, is when I was like, okay, now the story has a meaning. Because this goes out to all the mothers that struggle, that have kids that was forced to sacrifice. It became more than just a French Montana story. Because my story still hasn’t ended because I’m still in the prime of my career. But my mother’s story was like, okay, this story needs to come out because this lady was here for 25 years, didn’t see her family or nothing and sacrificed everything for her kids. And I was like, okay, this is something that I want the world to see. And that’s when I said, this documentary now makes sense to me.
Who were the hip-hop artists you grew up listening to and loving?
I never knew about Tupac until “All Eyez On Me” came out, that was the biggest thing. I remember Snoop’s “Doggystyle,” Coolio, rest in peace. “Renee” by the Lost Boys. I didn’t know about Jay-Z until I came to America. But once I came here, I just started digging more and more.
Many of the ones that you’ve described are gangster rappers. How much did listening to them fuel your path into hustling?
Honestly, it wasn’t all just gangster rap. I listened to La Bouche, I listened to a lot of techno music. I came here at 13, but I was sneaking into the club when I think I was 10 years old listening to techno music and watching people break dancing in Morocco. I had an older cousin that would take me, and I was just fascinated with the life.
Was it the art of what Tupac and Snoop were making that inspired you, or the experiences that they were relaying in their music?
I think that the lifestyle is why I fell in love with a lot of artists because I was going through what they was going through. I couldn’t go to college because I didn’t have papers. What I had to do, I didn’t have no choice doing, was hustle. What they talked about in their music, they was hustling. Your best friend gets shot. What did my best friend do? Get shot. Their best friend goes to jail, my best friend goes to jail. They was just speaking what I was going through and that’s why I was able to connect with them. And that’s the only lifestyle choice I had. I couldn’t get a job. I couldn’t go to college. The only thing to do was to hustle. We hustled, and everything came with the hustle. From the struggle to the jails to death to lawsuits, it all comes with the hustle. And back then it was more vivid, because you would fall in love with the artist for their lifestyle. Now you can fall in love with the artist for social media. Nowadays it’s almost like falling in love with an AI, because you don’t know these artists. Back then, you knew what you was getting yourself into and you felt more connected to the artist.
A lot of your big songs reimagine classic samples — “Shot Collar” with Lords of the Underground’s “Funky Child,” “Bring Dem Things” with Organized Konfusion, “New Thing” using Showbiz and AG. Is that a specific byproduct of you considering yourself a student of hip hop?
It’s like vintage — vintage will never go away. And hip hop might seem like it’s been around for 5,000 years, but it’s only been around for 50 years. And those are the sounds I grew up loving and I’d rather do that than go with a new sound sometimes. When Harry Fraud would walk in and play me the “Shot Caller” beat, I might have a beat next to it that don’t have no samples. I would do both, and I played them for the crowd and they just melt when they hear “Shot Caller.” Basically you’re paying homage to the people that did it before you, and you putting your own style into it. You have the young and the old together. And that’s what I feel like hip hop is about.
There isn’t much discussion of your personal life once your career takes over. How much freedom did you grant the documentarians to explore your life and career?
I covered everything except probably for me going through rehab and the times when I was living a rockstar life and crashed. And there probably will be a documentary about French Montana that covers the real shit. But this one was more of just an immigrant story. There will definitely be another one because my brother got deported. I want to see him come back. We’ve got a lot more things to accomplish. There’s always new things with your career, opportunities present themselves every day. But the first doc is like your first album — you cover things that you really want people to see.
How open do you generally feel like you are about your life and experiences in your art?
I don’t like to ghost ride my sanity — I just do as much as my soul can take. There’s times where I let it all out and there’s times where I got to just not let it self-destruct me. I’ve been in the game for a minute and I’ve seen a lot of people that couldn’t handle success and putting it all out there, because if you put it all out there, then what do you have left for you? There’s no fun in that. There’s no mystique in that. I just think everything is not for everybody too.
This documentary concludes with a beautiful family reunion in Morocco. What did you learn from watching your story told through someone else’s eyes?
What I learned is that I had no control of nothing. This thing happened because the sacrifices of my mother, and there was somebody up there that wanted to see us succeed and beat all the odds. Because there’s no way I went through all that stuff and all that trauma and all those situations and all those hurdles and managed to really not go to jail or not get caught. It just shows you that what Allah has planned for you, no man can stop. And that’s what happened. My mother didn’t know English. I didn’t know English. My little brothers didn’t know how to speak. For us to go through that struggle and still come out on top, it’s a blessing. That’s a miracle that people need to see — and see the struggle. We highlighted that this is what you have to go through. It’s a whole process.
