In a year chock full of collaboration projects, a mélange featuring New York’s rapper-of-the-moment French Montana and down South vets Three-Six-Mafia and Project Pat seems like a pan-regional love fest just oddball enough to work. North meets South chased with a healthy dose of goon fun. Unfortunately, if the regrettably cut-and-pasted album cover for Cocaine Mafia is any indication, this is a joint that needed a bit more rumination before release.
Cocaine Mafia opens with dialogue from Hip Hop’s requisite gangster flick, Scarface, “We gotta expand/The whole operation. Distribution/New York, Chicago, LA/We gotta set our own mark/and enforce it.” Commendable, albeit trite goals. The cast delivers on its individual parts on the lengthy 17-track set: haunting, guttural beats, plenty of chest-thumping and Juicy J’s shrieking “Shut the fuck up!” ad libs. There’s no shortage of quippy one-liners like “Speak in dollar signs/you might need a translator” on “Catch Ya Later” or woozy, drug and sex-laden fare (“All She Wants Is Money”). French Montana’s smooth and even flow serves its purpose but sometimes falls flat lyrically. “I bes the bomb like the Taliban”, he raps in a particularly low point on the underwhelming “Self Made” featuring Akon.
Contrast this with Three-Six-Mafia and Project Pat’s deft, hilarious and entertaining rhymes and things get easily muddied instead of being complementary. Fun, strip club-ready cuts like “Helicopter” and “Weed & Hennessy” work because they’re reminiscent of classic Three-Six/Project Pat instead of trying to create an inorganic new blend. “Out like Chief Wahoo/hoo/Take a pull then I pass it back to you/you/Hennessy and some coke in my cup man/Pull that penis out my broad gone suck man,” Project Pat raps on the latter track. Half-joking, half-dead ass serious, it begs us to impatiently wonder when the next full effort will drop from the Memphis cadre.
Cocaine Mafia is not an all-around bad album, but rather, the sum is less than the disparate parts. It works in theory – points should be given for attempting to bridge sonic boundaries – but loses it in execution. Sometimes leaving your hood isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
DX Consensus: “Just a Mixtape”
Listen to French Montana, Juicy J & Project Pat – Cocaine Mafia 
Same shit different day
I respect Three 6 Mafia so much, Pat too… but they are bastardizing their brand with all these wack-ass tapes.
French Montana is so fucking terrible.
It’s a Mixtape, not a Album.
French is the future of New York
Craccc
5
10
vote that shyt up haters
Why is French Montana hot? Cuz dude is awful.
Yeah, I was about to say the same thing. I got this album and am bored with it already.
FRENCH MONTANA RUN TING LISTEN TO LOCK OUT MIXTAPE DUMBASS YALL DONT KNOW UR MUSIC.
Its aight. Its just an average album to me. The beats are nice but dude isnt really that original to me. When it comes to dudes from NY that are influenced by the South, I’ll stick to A$AP Rocky. 3/5 for this French Montana mixtape.
Boring as hell
First of all, it’s a “Mixtape.” In the words of the DX Concensus, “Just a Mixtape.” French is a good rapper, but he’s not the future of New York. Juicy J and Project Pat? one word, two syllables, “Legends.” Juicy J just reinvented himself and came up as if he was still a new artist 20 yrs ago. Pat well, Pat will be Pat. He’ll drop albums every now and then. I think Hypnotize Minds needs a distribution deal because Sony/Columbia are not helping. The beats were epic, flow and lyrical content, superb. creativity 5/5 “STFU”
Juicy J is the reason the music is dope. Its just that French is not that great of a rapper. Nothing special at least not yet.
Your such a DUMB ASS BITCH @ Sowmya! The mixtape is called Cocaine Mafia…what else did u expect? Some lyrical intellectual shit. Give us a break. If u aint from the trap u aint gonna enjoy this shit.
word i feel u bro hood niggas r gonna like it. i fucks wid this heavy
fuck outta here
stench montana fucking sucks and anybody that listens to him is a bottom dwelling idiot.
rap sucks so bad now. NY rap scene really fucking sucks. hot 97 is a joke, same radio personalities still getting whipped around.
stench montana will never blow, fat lazy rican drunks with no rap skills will never be hot even in this fucked up rap game of today.
3 6 mafia fell off and sold out more than any group in rap. paul and juicy both suck now, and lost their ability to rap and produce bangers.
Worst rapper doin’ it? Gucci, move over.