French Montana

French Montana, born Karim Kharbouch in Casablanca, Morocco, on 9 November 1984, is a Moroccan-American rapper. ¹ Born and raised in Morocco, he immigrated to New York City with his family at the age of 13 and began his career as a battle rapper under the name Young French. ¹ His 2017 single "Unforgettable" received diamond certification, and he is the most-streamed African-born musical artist. ¹

He first gained recognition hosting the DVD series Cocaine City in the 2000s, and founded the record label Coke Boys Records in 2008. ¹ In 2012 he signed with Sean Combs's Bad Boy Records and Rick Ross's Maybach Music Group in a joint venture with Interscope Records, and his debut studio album Excuse My French (2013) peaked at number four on the Billboard 200. ¹ His second album, Jungle Rules (2017), peaked at number three, preceded by "Unforgettable" (featuring Swae Lee), which peaked in the Hot 100 top ten and received diamond certification from the RIAA; in 2024 it became the most-streamed song from New York. ¹ His later albums are Montana (2019) and They Got Amnesia (2021), the latter his final release on a major label. ¹ In 2003 he survived being shot in the head as he left a New York recording studio. ¹

His studio albums are Excuse My French (2013), Jungle Rules (2017), Montana (2019) and They Got Amnesia (2021), and his best-known single is the diamond-certified "Unforgettable" (2017). ¹ He is the most-streamed African-born musical artist and the first African-born artist to earn a diamond-certified song from the RIAA. ¹

This section sets out different positions as reported in the sources. It is not a verdict by the museum.

His faith as the sources state it. The English article's personal-life section states: "He is a practicing Sunni Muslim", citing an artist-biography page, a Vibe report of 21 April 2023 about his Arab-American heritage and his honouring of Ramadan, and a Power 105.1 piece of 23 September 2019 about his "Muslim roots" on an album cover. ¹ The Vibe report, read directly, speaks of his growing up identifying as a Muslim, of Islamic values of discipline, and of his fasting and reading the Qur'an through Ramadan; it names no school. ¹ The Arabic article names no school in its text, though its categories file him among Sunni Muslims — values inside the same Wikipedia family — and Wikidata gives only Islam generically. ^{2 3} The word "Sunni" therefore rests on one article's wording alone, and under the museum's two-source rule his record carries his faith as unknown, with the attestations recorded verbatim. ¹

Philanthropy. The article records extensive charitable work in Africa: filming the "Unforgettable" video in Uganda in 2017, his efforts raised an estimated US$500,000 to build the Suubi hospital, and he received the 2022 Innovator Award at the Pencils of Promise gala for his humanitarian efforts. ¹

• The defined source entities cited above, recorded in data/source/.
• Revisions of this article must be dated, and must name the source that changed each fact.