AllHipHop caught up with French Montana and Bun B in a sprawling condo on the set of the new French song “Bad Habits.” This is the first collaboration for the pair, but its not likely to be the last.
AllHipHop.com: So first of all can you tell us, tell Allhiphop.com and all the people watching how you guys got together? It seems like an unlikely pair.
Bun B: Nah, we got a common friend, Akon. Akon is a friend of mine recorded on the last UGK album. Of course he’s signed to Konvict Music. I happened to be in Miami when ‘Kon and Pitbull was shooting the video “Shut it Down,” and of course French was in the building, we just chopped it up. We had mutual respect. I had seen him doing his thing by himself, doing his thing with Max [B]. You know me, I was doing my thing with UGK. He was like, “We need to f**k around.” I have a list of cats that’s pre-approved, that can get a 16 [bar verse], and French was one of them. It was just a matter of time before we ended up in the same room. He hit me up, I just happened to be in the lab when he hit me, working on a new mixtape. He’s like “I got the joint,” and I said “Send it over.” Then I sent it right back. He ain’t see that coming because whether I happened to be in the lab or not, I was feeling it. I sent it back and the rest is history. We in New York shooting the video.
French Montana: Yeah, real talk.
AllHipHop.com: So French how’s it feel to work with the legendary Bun B?
French Montana: It’s a privilege man, it’s an honor. This is somebody. When I was in the trap listening to the King of the Trap.
AllHipHop.com: Yeah, No Doubt.
French Montana: This is someone you always looked up too. Rapper was the big homie man. Ain’t too much you can say man. The big homie, it is what it is. It’s just out of respect
AllHipHop.com: We’re trying to get Bun to run for the Senate.
All laugh
French Montana: A lot of dudes like Bun supposed to be doing what Bun is doing man. This is a perfect example that probably makes some of them like, “Yo, know what? I need to stop being bougie and really look out for those who deserve it.” Not everybody, but those who paved the way, those who’re doing real things.
AllHipHop.com: We’re on the video set here, and we want to know, the concept of the video, the name of it, and what we’re going to see in a few weeks or months when it comes out. Can you speak on that?
French Montana: The video is Bad Habits. Everybody got bad habits; drinking, smoking, whatever it is you do. You try to stop them but they keep coming back.
Bun B: Keep trying to put this glass down, but I keep picking that yac up. [takes a sip out of a glass]
French Montana:
See what I’m saying? It keeps coming back. Once he heard it he liked the concept he just jumped on it. It’s a ill concept because everybody’s got that.AllHipHop.com: So what are ya’ll putting on a heist or what? (02:26)
Bun B: Nah, the way I can see we just letting people ride the wave. So we showing them how we’re balling in the penthouse as you can see right now, 50th floor, and we’re going to show them the big cars.
French Montana: Top of New York.
Bun B: Like I said, we just showing how we ride the wave right now. I like the wave, I’m with that.
French Montana: [Laughs]
French Montana & Bun B – Behind The Scenes Of “Bad Habits”
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AllHipHop.com: For people that don’t know, we’re in the Trump Tower right now. Looking over the whole city of New York.
Bun B: We’re not just in a hotel in downtown, we’re in the Trump Tower. This that 10 million dollar view right here.
French Montana: I’m talking about glass steps, you might think you’re falling. Walking on water baby!
Bun B: Walking the wave.
AllHipHop.com: Speaking of wave, Max B, at least I believe, he popularized that phrase. I could be wrong.
French Montana: Yeah.
Bun B: Absolutely.
AllHipHop.com:
Could you give us a update on what’s going on with Max B?French Montana: Oh he good. His spirit is high. He in there hanging in the pill looking straight. You know the judge just gave him a date. He about to give him a date to go back to court, so keep prayers up, that’s all you can do. They try to sabotage rappers. You know it is what it is man. Free Max B!
Bun B: Free Max B!
AllHipHop.com: How you feel about that? It seems like every other day, T.I. goes in, somebody else comes out. Gucci goes in, Wayne’s going in…Do you really feel like somebody is really targeting rappers now?
Bun B: We definitely on the radar, and we’ve been trying to tell cats for a long time that we was on the radar. Now people are really seeing it, that they’re really watching our every move. And what they want, they really want to catch us with big drugs and, really want to catch us merking somebody. But, if they can lay us up a year behind some trumped up little charges, a little weed or, something like that, then they are going to take what they can get.
French Montana: Stop showing all them guns online.
Bun B: Real talk. They know we’re making an impact, they know we really talk to the streets, and they got a message that they trying to send that they don’t want us in the middle of. I’m a street dude, so they’ve been watching me for years. I’m on Rap-A-Lot so you know them black cars were following us for years. We’ve been rolling right and accordingly already, so I just been trying to put the young boys that’s coming in the game right now up on the game, just on how they need to move around. If you gotta go to a city…with a gun, if you ain’t got fam in that city that get you right and hold you down, you might not need to shoot around that way. Real talk.
French Montana: Definitely.
AllHipHop.com: And J Prince [owner of Rap-A-Lot Records], he dealt with it on a whole different level.
Bun B: Yeah, that’s what I’m saying, black cars been following us, it’s just a matter of time before cats get pulled over, and don’t start sweating now. That’s just real talk. That’s just the world we live in. They tried to trump him up, on charges they didn’t stick. I tell my dudes everyday like, “Be smart about how you move,” and “You gotta move a certain way,” and you can’t move right like that then your probably don’t need to move that day.
Bun B: Because somebody gonna get hemmed up, somebody can’t handle that time, or somebody gonna talk.
AllHipHop.com: Now this seems like a union of generations and on the flip side it seems like there’s a lot of in-fighting going on in hip-hop right now. Can you guys speak on that a little bit? One example is Meth and Waka Flocka, they have words for each other a little bit.
French Montana: That’s the funniest beef ever. [laughs]
Bun B: I think the problem with that is just really miscommunication. We’re dealing with different generations of people that’s coming up through different times. I’m not gonna say nothing about what Waka said because he’s a grown man, if he needs to speak on his words, he can speak on them. We all grown, we all got our own opinions. I think we all just need to just chill and just do what we do. I don’t think young rappers need to have opinions about old rappers, and I don’t think old rappers need to have opinions about young rappers.
I think if anything, it’s not like Waka don’t have respect for the generation before him because I know how he gonna give it up to me if he see me. But, at the same time, when you from my generation, you can’t go out and expect everybody to be able to relate to you and what you’ve done. For every Waka Flocka that may not look up to Method Man, there’s probably a 1,000 emcees that do. So I don’t think Meth need to lose no sleep over it. As far as Waka, he’s getting his money, so I know he ain’t losing no sleep over it. So I would just like for everybody to wake up tomorrow, and just keep pushing. I don’t see Wacka really having no beef with Method Man, I don’t really see Method Man having no beef with Waka Flocka. I think somebody said something that somebody might have not liked, somebody spoke back on it. Men is men, let’s move on and get money.
French Montana:
Get these lyrical rappers.AllHipHop.com: Yeah, yeah, Well Waka said –
Bun B: Well, I ain’t gonna say diss lyrical rappers, but he, you know, talking about getting to the money.
French Montana:
Yeah, that’s right.Bun B: You know what I’m saying? But, you know, when people concentrate on lyricism and the artform, those are people that’s not concentrating on the money.
French Montana: It’s just like hustling.
Bun B: If they wanted to get the money, they could do what it takes to go and get that money. They can make their music, they choose to do something else. I give blessings to them and I give blessings to Waka, cause we all gonna eat, everybody is gonna eat.
AllHipHop.com: You right about that. Now let me ask you guys musically, can you guys give us an update on what you’re doing?
French Montana: I got that “Bad Habits” that’s off the Mac & Cheese mixtape part two, DJ Drama, Gangster Grillz. It’s going to be coming out through Archer. And the album is coming out in summer, it’s called Excuse My French. That’s gonna be out real soon in summer, probably late summer it’s supposed to be dropping. We gonna keep cleaning the streets, man, give them what they need. I know Bun got the mixtape out right now.
Bun B:
No Mixtape (Bun’s new mixtape) baby! Yes sir!French Montana: Making history.
Bun B: Trying to do something, man.
French Montana: It looks different when you look at it.
Bun B: Yeah, we just did it like a regular……[looks around] Where my copy went? What you did with that? AllHipHop.com: You said I can have it!
Bun B: Naw, I’m just saying though!
AllHipHop.com: Oh, aight, aight.
Bun B: [holds up what looks like a homemade burned CD] You know what I’m saying, that’s the original packaging on it. We just did it like a cat making a CD. I get a lot of CDs handed to me like this, so I thought I would hand one back. We just trying to take it back to what cats did. Just put rhymes down, burnt the CD, and passed it out, hoped somebody felt it. That’s what I did, I put rhymes down, burnt it on a CD, and hope people feel it. I hope you feel that, Chuck.
AllHipHop.com: Oh yes, you know, nobody’s getting this. [laughs] Now, Bun…last time we kicked it a little bit was at the Democratic National Convention out there in Denver. Watched Mr. Obama do a speech and we were both sending pictures out. Can you, in your esteemed opinion, give Mr. Obama a rating so far?
Bun B: I personally think he’s doing a 9.5 job. Because nobody’s perfect, that’s the only reason why I wouldn’t give him a 10, because nobody’s perfect. He’s going to have his issues and problems and you definitely going to have people that don’t like you. It’s all good when people love you when the lights is flashing, and the cameras is on, and we all, having a big ball, and a big party, but then you know, when something goes wrong everybody’s quick to turn their back.
But I think he’s doing a great job. I think personally with the first year he had was probably one of the roughest first year of any presidential administration. I think he handled it with poise. I think my man, he brought together the country, he brought together the party. I see real strong division in the republican party right now over conservatism, but with him, he brought the democrats together while the republicans are steady falling apart. I don’t think he’s a one term president. I think it’s too soon to be speaking on that. I think for the next two years he’s going to have the opportunity to really affect change in the country on different things. I know we concentrating on the health care bill and all that right now but, in the process of that, we’re going to get a lot of other things covered. And I think when it comes up time for reelection, we’re going to see what he put down, and we’re going to see the more potential he has to do more, and we’re going to elect him for another term.
AllHipHop.com: I overheard you say you worked with Drake and Preemo on your new album. Can you speak on that?
Bun B:
Yeah, Preemo’s the homie man. Preemo’s been a good friend of me and Pimp C, long live the Pimp. Been a good friend of ours for years. We always had schedule conflicts since trying to work together on a UGK song. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to do anything as far as UGK was concerned, but we had a opportunity to do something on this album.Also working with Drake, of course, incredible young talent, taking the game by storm right now. We just really went in and tried to build up some s###. With me, it’s easy to send a hook and a verse over, but I kinda like to start things from scratch. That’s why the music with Drake is real organic, it sounds great. The stuff I’m doing with Justice League, and the stuff I’m doing with Premier, the stuff I’m doing with my man Steve Below, like, I’m not bringing in people to do hooks for me, if the producer has somebody that’s cool, but otherwise, I’m trying to build it from scratch. Start it from right there. I’m not bringing in pre-written rhymes or none of that. We’ve been able to make some real good music. I’m still going in right now, just left Miami working with Pharrell.
AllHipHop.com: Yeah I saw the picture.
Bun B: We put two in together yesterday, which was ill because the first song, he had the beat, and he had the idea for the hook, I played with it a little bit, and we put that down. And then the second one, he had a session with me, and he had a session with Shakira next door.
AllHipHop.com: Okay.
Bun B: So he went over to Shakira, when he came back I had laid like a whole other song on another beat, and he was like, “Naw we can’t even use this beat, this song too hard.” He’s like, “This might be the first first time I have to go and redo a beat because of the rhyme.”
AllHipHop.com: Right.
Bun B: You hear emcees redoing rhymes, but I never really heard of a producer having to redo a beat. So that’s some new s###…to me because believe it to me to beat the gave me was was hard. If you want to leave it alone I’m good, but if you want to change it, I’m better.
AllHipHop.com: That’s what’s up.
Bun B: You know.
AllHipHop.com: And French, explain to me, working with Lady Gaga. She’s out the box regardless.
French Montana: She’s out of here. I just got to put a blend to it, make sure we both connecting the same point.
AllHipHop.com:
Right, right, now is this for your album or your mixtape?French Montana: Nah nah nah, have Lady Gaga on the mixtape? Nah, that ain’t never gonna happen. Nah, Lady Gaga for the album. Doing that for the album. That’s going to be one of the singles, you know. I mean you talking about Gaga, you talking about a mil and a half a show. Like, that’s other kind of money.
AllHipHop.com: Did ya’ll meet in the studio?
French Montana: I met her at New Year’s, with ‘Kon. She had the New Year’s party, me and ‘Kon flew to Miami. Got with her Fountain Blue…She’s definitely a good person.
AllHipHop.com: Yeah yeah, You know, she’s on the front page of everything.
French Montana: Gaga’s that new. Gaga’s that other money, you know, like you can’t compare her to nobody. You talk about Madonna this and that, like, Gaga’s that new talent. Shout out to Gaga, shout out to everybody on Konvict, shout out to Akon. He’s definitely a mastermind behind a lot of good talent to come out. Shout out to him. We just going to keep making music, make it happen, we got the OG.