Welcome to Sleeper Hit Support Group, a column diving into the song currently occupying the bottom spot of the Billboard Hot 100.

In a pop landscape that asks more questions that it answers, I'm setting out to answer three questions about each of these songs: how it got here, if the song is good, and where it's going. In this 100th spot we'll find unlikely ascents, falls from grace, and resurgences of hits from bygone eras.

Today, we're taking a look at "Ever Since U Left Me" by Max B and French Montana.

How did it get here?

Max B and French Montana are, quite literally, partners in crime. Max B is probably better known for his criminal record than his music. We were never supposed to hear from Max B again. He's spent all but four years of his adult life a free man.

Born and raised in the projects of Harlem, Max B (born Charles Wingate) was raised by his maternal grandparents while his mom was battling substance abuse. He grew up singing in the Boys Choir of Harlem, but started getting involved in street culture as a teenager. Wingate's first prison sentence began when he was 18 after being charged with robbery in 1997, and he was released eight years later in 2005. After he got out of prison, he began pursuing a rap career under the Max B name. The B is short for Biggaveli, a portmanteau of the nicknames of The Notorious B.I.G. (Biggie), Jay Z (Jigga), and Tupac Shakur (Makavelli).

Most of Max B's early career was spent writing for fellow Harlem rapper Jim Jones, whose biggest hit was 2006's "We Fly High." The song sparked a short lived beef with Jay-Z that was so insignificant that I can't really figure out exactly why it started besides petty industry disagreements. Max B has a writing credit, but seemingly had nothing to do with the beef due to the fact that he was in prison again for his involvement in a botched robbery-turned-homicide. He would spend the song's release and subsequent success behind bars. It peaked at #5 in February 2007 – not because of the beef – but because of its association with Michael Strahan's victory dances when he was on the New York Giants. Jim Jones and his Dipset crew received national recognition that most upstarts could only dream of.

Max B got out of jail on a $2 million bail 10 months into his sentence. He procured the funds by selling his publishing rights to Jones, something he now deeply regrets. He would soon after stop working with Jones and those in his orbit. Bitter towards Jones, Max would go on to form a close relationship with Bronx rapper French Montana over their shared hatred.

At the time, French Montana (born Karim Karbouch) was known best for his locally-tailored DVD series Cocaine City, where he'd interview other rappers, discuss the goings on of NYC street culture, and showcase his own rapping under the name Young French. The series ran from 2002 to 2010, a passion project that Karbouch made with the help of his childhood friends. Here's a clip of Max and French paying an angry visit to Jim Jones early on in their friendship.

The two's first collaboration was on the song "Waavvy (Fuck Jim Jones)" from French Montana's second mixtape Live From Africa (Karbouch is a Moroccan immigrant). Few things sound as dated as this song.

"Wavy" as a slang term has been attributed to this song, which is an angle the pair are still milking to this day with the embarrassingly titled "MAWA (Make America Wavy Again)." Nothing says "washed" quite like rehashing slang you coined nearly 20 years ago with a Trumpist twist.

The duo would release their first collaborative mixtape Coke Wave in February 2009, just weeks before they would both put out their respective solo mixtapes. Coke Wave has its cult fans and has found some retrospective critical acclaim, but made few actual waves otherwise. They followed it up the following November with the aptly titled Coke Wave 2. They would distribute/promote these mixtapes through local and grassroots means like street DVDs and hip-hop centric websites, as they alleged Jim Jones was blackballing them in the industry. People respected that as an alternative to the machinery of big labels. That February solo mixtape would be Max B's last before being arrested once more, this time for a much more serious crime.

In June of 2009, Max B was sentenced to 75 years in prison for murder, with parole eligibility beginning in 2042. Mixtapes and features in his name would continue to get released either from previous recordings or verses he would deliver over the phone. The most notable of these phoned-in features was the "Siiiiiiiiilver Surffffeeeeer Intermission" from Kanye West's The Life of Pablo, featuring a message Max left for West via a phone call with French Montana. He sends his regards for Kanye's adoption of the "wavy" lifestyle.

While Max was in jail, French Montana became a mildly successful rapper. He was part of the 2012 XXL freshman class (a cohort that featured the likes of Future, Danny Brown, and Macklemore), signed to Diddy's label Bad Boy, later making it a joint venture with Rick Ross's Maybach Music Group.

Montana got his first whiff of chart success in 2012 when he found himself in the company of Rick Ross and the then-ascendant Drake. "Stay Schemin'" was the first of the two tracks, a Rick Ross lead single that peaked at #58. The real star of that song is Drake, who delivered a really solid verse dissing Common in response to Common's track "Sweet." It was named the best guest verse of 2012 by Complex.

The only thing French Montana was remembered for on "Stay Schemin'" was his lack of enunciation, which is why the misheard fake word "fanute" became a short-lived meme in hip-hop communities. A slow news week lead to a New York Times article about the mondegreen. Here's him saying pretty much nothing about it:

French would collaborate with the two again (with the addition of Lil Wayne) just a couple months later for the lead single of his debut record, "Pop That." It's a completely unremarkable club song that peaked at #36 in November 2012.

All of French Montana's hits are carried by more interesting stars, regardless of whether they're a guest on Montana's song or vice versa. His only two top ten hits have almost nothing to do with him. He's the feature on the "East Coast Version" of Chris Brown's "Loyal," a disgusting and demeaning song in its own right, which peaked at #9 in May 2014. And Montana's biggest hit, "Unforgettable," was a Drake throwaway that found success on the back of Swae Lee's popularity from Rae Sremmurd, and was pretty blatantly trend-hopping with its dancehall infused beat. It peaked at #3 in August 2017, right at the peak of dancehall's influence on pop music.

Montana has not so much as grazed that level of success since. Before "Ever Since U Left Me," his last charting hit was a feature on a really strange 2023 Diddy song with a hook sung by The Weeknd. It charted for one week at #87.

Despite everything, the final few months of 2025 shaped up to be huge for French Montana's life. Last August, it was announced he was engaged to Mahra Al Maktoum, an Emirati princess and the daughter of UAE Prime Minister Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Their engagement came within a year of their first meeting.

Meanwhile, Max B was about to be released from prison. His sentence was reduced to 20 years on September 16, 2016, after he pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter. He was ultimately released on November 9th, 2025, 17 years sooner than he was even supposed to be eligible for parole. The duo was back in business. Coke Wave 3.5 (not really sure what the half is about) came out exactly two months after Max's release.

So with all that said...

Is the song any good?

There's so much context here for music that exudes so little. In the context of the mixtape, a "skit" of an AI generated newscaster delivers the following to lead into the song:

"News this morning, NYC residents, stay safe
Dick-riding is at an all-time high
Broke boys are on the rise
Pieces are not hitting and the plugs have the same work"

"Ever Since U Left Me" samples KC and the Sunshine Band's 1975 chart topper "That's the Way (I Like It)." As put by New York Times critic Jon Caramanica, "It's an extremely low hanging fruit sample." He went on to stress that this track likely has no legs outside of NYC, as the city has not been much of a driver of national hip-hop culture recently. There's nothing downright offensive about it – French Montana just kind of lies about his life the whole time.

"Ever Since U Left Me" is a breakup song for the club where the two brag that they're richer and better than ever after this fictional breakup. If anything, French Montana is experiencing the exact opposite of this right now. He is quite literally engaged to a princess and will soon be part of Dubai's royal family, gaining access to an amount of wealth I have a hard time conceptualizing.

"Ever since you left me / More diamonds, more gold, more motion, more hoes," could not be further from the truth. This is a cash grab for nostalgic NYC millennials/Gen Xers and not much else.

Where is it going?

Nowhere. It seems to be getting solid airplay on hip-hop stations on novelty alone, and that hasn't been enough to carry a song in decades. It seems like Max B is enjoying his newly-minted freedom, but there's simply no way someone that just spent 16 years behind bars is able to drive hip-hop or culture in general in any meaningful way.

Perhaps the two keep making these mixtapes as an infinite money printer. They seem to have pretty quick turnarounds anyways. Or maybe French Montana finds himself immersed in the Dubai royalty lifestyle when he becomes a prince and he finally goes away.