The smash French Montana single that was originally made for Drake’s ‘Views’ album
French Montana landed the biggest hit of his career in 2017. ‘Unforgettable’ is a diamond single in the US, peaking at number three on the Billboard Hot 100 and two on the UK Singles Chart while racking up over 2.4billion streams on Spotify. However, the Bronx rapper only secured the beat after Drake had the option to use it first.
The song was produced by Mike WiLL Made-It, CP Dubb, Jaegan, and 1Mind, a collective from Indiana made up of Mac Sutphin, Michael Lohmeier, and Sebastian Lopez. Years ago, the trio revealed that the instrumental came about after Drake’s manager, Oliver El-Khatib (also the co-founder of OVO Sound), asked them to send over some beats for his 2016 album, Views.
Ultimately, he turned it down, and Montana snatched it up. “I started the beat in April of last year [2016],” Sutphin explained to HipHopDX. “I started the beat because Oliver [El-Khatib], who is Drake’s manager, DM’ed us on Twitter and was like, ‘We’re finishing Views. We want some more beats, so if you guys have any last-minute submissions, send them now.’ So I just went and made some quick stuff for them.”
Adding, “The first one I started working on for that session was the ‘Unforgettable’ beat. I sent it back to them, and they were like, ‘This is really dope, hold it.’ They didn’t pick it, so I sent it to Jaegan, the other producer, and he kind of added a lot of parts to it. We sent that to CP, and CP got it placed with Swae.”
In addition to Drake, Jeremih also had the beat in his possession, which is how Montana first crossed paths with the instrumental. “I know Jeremih had it, and I think he’s actually the one who played it for French,” Lohmeier said. “And then French said ‘mine’ and grabbed it and added his little sauce on it. [Jeremih’s] not on the final cut. I know there’s some leaked versions where he’s still on it. But the final record is Swae and French.”
He added, “It was originally Swae’s. Swae wrote the track, and then it got sent over to French. And then French liked it. He added a verse, and then they dropped it.” Drake and Montana have a history of collaborations, teaming up on ‘No Stylist’, ‘Pop That’, and Rick Ross’ ‘Stay Schemin’, so it’s no surprise that Montana works so well over it.
The song, which appeared on Montana’s Jungle Rules album, has been certified diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America and is platinum in over 16 countries worldwide. At the time it was released, Montana was feeling low and drinking away his pain following Chinx’s death and dealing with Max B’s imprisonment.
When asked if he knew what he had on his hands with ‘Unforgettable’, Montana told VladTV, “I definitely knew what I had. Anybody will tell you. Shout out to Mike WiLL, shout out to Swae Lee, man. We shared an incredible moment in hip-hop.”