French Montana Says Taylor Swift Inspired 126-Song ‘Mac & Cheese 5’ Mixtape

French Montana has responded to all the criticism he’s been receiving for dropping five versions of his latest mixtape, Mac & Cheese 5, which totals 126 songs.

On Friday, French sat down with TMZ to explain why he dropped six different versions of the songs off his new tape. On the project, fans can listen to every track from the record in either explicit, clean, sped-up, slowed-down, instrumental, or acapella versions. 

According to French, he wasn’t trying to game the system by boosting streams like many on social media believed; instead, he got the idea to release multiple versions from Taylor Swift. The pop megastar released different versions of her studio albums recently and, in return, saw a huge boost in sales, which French is hoping to achieve with his music.

“Taylor Swift dropped eight versions of her album,” French said. “I’m just learning the hustle from them. I dropped five versions…My fans always love my beats so I dropped the instrumental. I dropped a capella for all the DJs that like blending and I dropped clean. I dropped the sped-up one because of TikTok, and I dropped the chopped and screwed. So people can stop asking me for all different types of versions, and I guess all those songs equaled out to 126 songs.” 

He continued, “I was watching everybody doing it. I was watching JT and a bunch of other people who had big records, and I see them just put out instrumentals and all that. I’m like, how come it’s so easy to find this, and when I went on their page, and I saw they had six different versions, I was like, they’re geniuses.”

Mac & Cheese 5 features guest appearances by Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Rick Ross, Lil Durk, Lil Baby, Meek Mill, JID, Westside Gunn, 41, Jeremih, Bryson Tiller, and more. In an interview with the Breakfast Club on Friday, French said he hopes this project can inspire his peers to put out more mixtapes.

“I feel like I needed to get everything out the way then go back to the mixtape vibes. I always try to go where the puck is going, not where the puck is at. I feel like the game needs mixtapes,” he said. “That feeling isn’t there anymore. Albums is dope everybody’s getting used to it, but I want to hear [Lil] Wayne mixtapes, Rick Ross Rich Forever mixtapes, Wiz Khalifa [Kush & Orange Juice] mixtapes. I just want to get back to that vibe and I want to lead the way with the mixtapes.”