{"id":410466,"date":"2026-01-15T07:59:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T07:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/410466\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T07:59:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T07:59:07","slug":"french-montana-max-b-coke-wave-3-5-narcos-album-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/410466\/","title":{"rendered":"French Montana \/ Max B: Coke Wave 3.5: Narcos Album Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s the recipe for a good Coke Wave mixtape: First, add one French Montana<\/a>, but make sure he\u2019s spitting with the hunger of a Bronx hustler ready to bet every last wad of cash in his jeans<\/a> on a rap battle<\/a>. Then, carefully fold in Harlemite Max B<\/a> and add a healthy dash of Grand Cru Remy Martin<\/a>. While he\u2019ll surely heat up with bars indebted to the styles of Biggie, Jay-Z, and Tupac, that extra dash of sauce will have him singing melodies like he\u2019s giving a drunken Motown audition in another lifetime. Finally, marinate their sleazy bars and catchy hooks in beats that transform 20th-century classics\u2014the kind heard at retirement home parties\u2014into headknocking bangers. Soon, you\u2019ll have Max B pouring his heart into a melodic street rap ballad that channels the soul<\/a> of a \u201960s Marlena Shaw record<\/a>, while Frenchy cooly raps about moving bricks over a Dark Side of the Moon flip<\/a>.<\/p>\n

All this propelled the deliriously fun and hard-nosed duo to the crest of New York rap in the late 2000s, before the wave crashed with Max B\u2019s incarceration in 2009. Coke Wave 3.5: Narcos, the second album Max B has released since he walked free in November<\/a>, reignites the infectious dynamic between Max and French but doesn\u2019t surf on legacy. It captures what made one of New York hip-hop\u2019s greatest link-ups so captivating, but also calls into question why they would break away from the distinct \u201cwavy\u201d strain of rap they claimed in the first place.<\/p>\n

The duo\u2019s chemistry shines on standouts like \u201cWhippin That Wave,\u201d where they flow effortlessly (and shamelessly) over DJ Clue\u2019s 1998 \u201cQueensfinest\u201d<\/a> instrumental for Nas<\/a> with the same confidence shown on Coke Wave 2\u2019s \u201cWave Thang<\/a>\u201d\u2014a harder take on Dre and Snoop\u2019s classic<\/a> for Uptown dudes with four Pelle Pelle jackets in their closets. But when they attempt to flex over a sample of KC & the Sunshine Band\u2019s disco classic \u201cThat\u2019s The Way (I Like It)\u201d on \u201cEver Since U Left Me<\/a>,\u201d they lose sync with one another and rap aimlessly on a beat that sounds like clich\u00e9 fashion catwalk music.<\/p>\n

French Montana has long approached hip-hop like an A&R hunting for the next hit; it\u2019s a skill he honed years before he scored a chart-topping Afrobeats-inspired single<\/a> largely carried by Swae Lee<\/a>\u2019s vocals. But back in the aughts, when he was inserting himself into his own Cocaine City DVDs, he knew how to hold his ground beside a killer freestyle by Uptown rapper Al-Doe<\/a> or raw footage of Dipset getting jumped at Rucker Park<\/a>. On this tape French finds himself back in that DVD-mixtape era pocket on \u201cHeaven,\u201d but he loses it on \u201cMake America Wavy Again (MAWA),\u201d where he attempts to engineer a tri-state nightclub banger that fizzles faster than a $500 bottle of Champagne. And while a Murda Beatz<\/a> trap beat may have worked for French and Drake<\/a> a decade ago on their hit \u201cNo Shopping<\/a>,\u201d it leaves his brother Max stumbling on \u201cThe Race.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s the recipe for a good Coke Wave mixtape: First, add one French Montana, but make sure he\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410467,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[342,49,48,75,341,343],"class_list":{"0":"post-410466","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-albums","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-music","13":"tag-web"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410466\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}