All the Way Out: French Montana pays NYC woman’s bail

Rapper French Montana is joining the voices of many who are against the cash bail system because it weighs so heavily against the poor

Jay Scott Smith

Oct 9, 2018

Rapper French Montana, well known for his collabs with Fat Joe, Drake, Diddy, Remy Ma and more, has been collaborating for a bigger cause: helping to fix the criminal justice system one person at a time.

Recently, French paid the bail for an unnamed Bronx, N.Y., woman who couldn’t afford it. It highlights the numerous issues of cash bail — which often penalizes people for simply being poor.

“I got a best friend doing 75 years in jail,” French told TMZ on Monday. “I got another friend doing 30 years in jail. I just feel like it’s not a crime to be in poverty.

“I feel like you should be innocent until proven guilty,” he added. “Just because you can’t afford to be out of there doesn’t mean you should be in there. A lot of people lose their families, jobs, kids and all kinds of things for something that petty and we want to end that whole cash bail thing.”

French, whose real name is Karim Kharbouch, was born in Morocco but grew up in the South Bronx, has teamed up with Global Citizen, Revolve Impact, The Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Organization, and Mass Bail Out to help get people out of jail who can’t afford it.

This is the latest philanthropic move by French. Earlier this year he teamed with Adam Levine to do a remix of his 2017 song “Famous” to benefit the Suubi Center, an underfunded maternity and children’s clinic in Uganda.

“Me coming from Morocco in North Africa, I feel like it should be a soft spot for anyone that has a mother or a child,” Montana said in an interview with CNN. “I think that’s got to be one of the worst things: not having the right healthcare. When I went to Uganda I felt obligated to help.”