Waka Flocka Flame and French Montana team up for a new colab tape that is sure to bring in the holiday season with a bang. Flocka busted onto the scene in 2010 thanks to numerous guest spots from mentor and Bricksquad label mate Gucci Mane. Flocka’s 2010 album Flockaveli  garnered praise from such diverse outlets as Pitchfork and Rolling Stone for reducing gangsta rap back to the basics: physicality, hyper masculinity, drug culture, and fatalism. French Montana is a combo rapper/singer of Moroccan and Somali decent. Though he has not release a standard album yet, French has developed a large underground following due to his collection of best selling street DVD line, Cocaine City. French was recently the focal point of a large biding war from some of the countries most prominent boutique rap labels; Akon’s Konvict Muzik, Rick Ross’s Maybach Music, Kanye’s GOOD Music. French eventually signed with Diddy’s label Bad Boy Records.
Immediately upon listening to the album you are reminded of the production values on Flocka’s previous tapes. This album is pure intensity with no subtlety. The beats are stripped down, heavy, muddled, and repetitive. No awards will be won for uniqueness on the DJ Drama and DJ Green Lantern hosted songs. The vocals by both Waka and French can only be described as lacking inspiration. The same generic lines are copy and pasted over and over through the songs. The searching for any wordplay to brings a smile to the listener often ends with nothing but Waka’s one word bellows and French trying to bust right along with him.

Upon hearing French Montana sing for the first time is becomes apparent that he has no appreciable skill at the position. More than singing, his choruses are droning spoken words. He voice is layered at an attempt to harmonize his nasally voice, but it just ends in discord. The dude can’t even match his own voice, imagine him trying to match voices with anyone of note. While his rapping is nothing special and suffers from the normal cliches (drinking, smoking, women, money) it’s French’s singing that signals him as different (worst) than the rest of his contemporaries.

The standout track on this tape is I Want it All, a different stroke from the majority of the previous tracks. This song has a solid, bumping chorus. The real treat however is a verse from Chinx Drugs. After the previous dozen songs it comes as manna from the heavens and leaves an impression on the listener. This verse benefits greatly from the ugly friends factor and maybe this type of guest matching should be a more used promotional technique for budding rappers.

After hearing the hype for this type, a Throne stimulated collaboration between two up and coming mc’s the listener can not help but be disappointed. Waka brings an insipid effort and is starting to show that he is a one trick pony that might not ever be able to live up to the fame of his debut album. The truly scary aspect of this tape is that it gives a glipse at the lack of talents of French Montana. I have a feeling that despite these limitations he will still be one of he most hyped artist coming in the next year. Maybe he keeps all his good stuff for the CEOs that he was woed by because he certainly didn’t drop any of it on this record. If you must check out this tape listen to the Top Tracks first

Top Tracks: We Mobb, Dat All, I Want it All

Direct Download: Waka Flocka & French Montana – Lock Out