Rabat – In his first interview following his release from a Los Angeles intensive care unit (ICU), French Montana implied that Moroccan witchcraft played a role in his hospitalization.
Sitting down with YouTuber DJ Akademiks in early December, the rapper explained that he had taken his mother to visit her brothers and sisters in Morocco after his birthday on November 9. She had not seen her family for more than 20 years, he said.
“She sacrificed so I could be French Montana,” he told DJ Akademiks, referring to his family’s immigration to the US when he was just 13 years old.
The rapper, born Karim Kharbouch in Casablanca, described how he stayed diligently by his mother’s side while she visited her Moroccan relatives.
“When you don’t see nobody for 25 years you basically don’t know the person, so I wanted to make sure that I left her in the right hands [sic].”
He hinted that he did not trust the people he had been with during the visit.
“All people see out there in Africa is money, that’s why nobody make it out [sic]. And I know that’s the root of all evil.”
French Montana went on to detail his brush with witchcraft.
“I think I ate something bad. I think someone was trying to … you know,” he trailed off. “They don’t got no guns over there, they fight with spirits and s**t like that [sic].”
He said that he remembered eating something which caused him to hallucinate.
“So, like food poisoning?” the interviewer asked.
“Yeah, but in they own way [sic],” French Montana replied. “They call it s’hur over there.”
S’hur refers to the use of magical curses and magical poisoning in the Moroccan dialect of Arabic (Darija). It is known as Moroccan witchcraft or black magic.
The rapper did not offer further elaboration and instead went on to describe how the combination of his international travels, his birthday celebrations, and his aspirations to drop his new album became “a suicide mission.”
In late November, Los Angeles police made a medical call on French Montana’s behalf while responding to a separate incident at a house party. The officers noted that he looked unwell, and he spent more than a week in the hospital.
French Montana revealed that he would have likely died if he had not gone to the hospital when he did.
Read also: Lavender, Snails, and Warding Off the Evil Eye in Morocco
