When Desiigner burst onto the scene, he was an unknown emcee who made hip-hop history seemingly overnight. He's one of only a handful of artists to ever debut on the charts with a song that would eventually go to No. 1 with "Panda." During that time, there was supposedly a heated bidding war for labels to sign the young rapper based on his meteoric rise to fame. As per a video interview he did with Genius, there were more than ten parties vying for his signature. "I was in an 11 label bidding war," he said. "All of them was going nuts. Some of them gave it to me, some of them was like, 'Ah, let's see how Panda do.' They lost, they lost out. [Now] I'm in a great squad. GOOD Music, Def Jam the family." Today, we've learned that one of the other labels in the running - and one that almost won out - was French Montana's Coke Boys imprint.
Taking to Instagram to share the story alongside a video clip that they both star in for the Adidas sports brand, French revealed the truth behind said bidding war. "How I could've signed my brother [Desiigner] to Cokeboys, but I told him get that good music bag," he emcee stated. "I'mma be here for you regardless. Proud of your success Lil bro !!" It's an interesting revelation, given the fact that there's so much competition in the record business to sign artists that show huge potential, seemingly at any cost. For Montana to voluntarily give up on that chase, in the interest of telling Desiigner to take the fatter cheque from Kanye West's G.O.O.D Music label, is as astonishing as it is honorable. You don't necessarily see that kind of act in the world of rap music on the regular, or at least you don't hear about it publicly.
Check out his full Instagram post below.
Make sure you check out French Montana's new video for "Rose Showers," where he stars alongside Zoey Dollaz, Dave East and DJ Kay Slay.