French Montana on Why India Feels Like a Full Circle Moment

Looking back at the hip-hop he grew up with, Montana feels the genre has travelled a long way from its earlier sound.

“It’s changing. Hip-hop is changing from where I started to now. I feel like where I started is the golden era and before it,” he said, adding, “So hopefully we get it back to where it was.”

Montana has collaborated with some of the biggest names in music, but for him, a successful collaboration begins with something more instinctive than strategy. He believes there has to be a genuine appreciation for the person on the other side of the track.

“You have to actually like the artist that you are working with for the collaboration to work,” he said. “You have to actually be a fan of the artist you are doing the collaboration with.”

That openness to collaboration has also allowed his music to travel far beyond the places he may have otherwise reached. Musical crossovers, he says, have the power to take artists into completely new territories.

“Musical crossovers excite me the most because you get to reach territories like India,” Montana said. For him, the global appeal of music comes down to its ability to communicate without requiring translation. “Music is the only language that everybody speaks.”

India, in particular, represents a significant full-circle moment for the rapper. Born in Morocco and raised in the Bronx, Montana says Indian culture was already familiar to him while growing up.

“I am from Morocco. When I was a young kid, it was a lot of Indian influence in Morocco,” he said. His journey from Morocco to America and eventually to India therefore felt almost cyclical. “Me just growing up and moving to America, then coming right back to India. It was like a full circle.”

His Hyderabad performance also marked a personal milestone. Asked what performing for an Indian audience meant to him, particularly at a time when hip-hop has become increasingly prominent in the country, he kept his answer simple.

“It means I have accomplished something. To come all the way from the Bronx here.”

On stage, Montana approaches music differently from the way he does in the studio. There is more movement and less introspection as he focuses on the experience of the people in front of him.

“A little more dancing. A little more, not thinking about the rest of the world,” he said of the difference between performing and recording. On stage, his attention turns to the show and the people who have come to see him. “I am just thinking about my performances and about making my fans happy.”

In the studio, however, the process becomes much more instinctive. Montana says he is driven less by formulas and more by emotion.

“When I am in the studio, I am very creative. I chase the feeling,” he notes, adding, “I don’t actually chase anything else but how the music makes me feel.”

That emotional connection is what he ultimately wants to pass on to his listeners. “And if something makes me feel a certain way, I want everybody to hear it to feel the same way that I felt.”

Fans in Hyderabad were also promised something new. Montana revealed that he was bringing his next single, an unreleased track, to the show.

“I am bringing my next single, my next unreleased single,” he said, on the day of his concert, confirming that the audience would get to hear it during his performance.

His relationship with India could also extend into the studio. With Indian music known for its strong melodic traditions, Montana was asked whether there was an Indian artist he would particularly like to collaborate with. His answer suggested he was keeping his options wide open.

“All of them,” he said. Pressed to name just one, he repeated the answer rather than narrowing it down.

For an artist whose catalogue includes the global success of ‘Unforgettable’, the idea of what constitutes a hit has also evolved. Montana sees music as something that has to respond to the moment rather than remain fixed to one formula.

“I feel like you make different music for different times,” he said. Looking back at ‘Unforgettable’, he described the track as part of the Afro wave that was emerging at the time. “We started Afro at that time.”

His newer work, he says, reflects a different musical moment. “And now we have ‘Ever Since You Left Me’, which is hip-hop.” For Montana, staying relevant is less about recreating an earlier success and more about understanding where music is headed.

“I feel like when times change, you just have to adapt to it and make hits that go with the time.”

For an artist who has travelled from the Bronx to stages around the world, that ability to adapt may be at the heart of Montana’s continuing journey. And in Hyderabad, his India debut offered him more than just another performance. It brought together his Moroccan roots, his Bronx beginnings and a country he says had been part of his cultural landscape since childhood, all through the universal language that first carried him there... music.