Ferland Mendy x Conway The Machine - What's Our Excuse?

Imagine losing the one thing you’ve spent years dreaming of and countless hours working towards. Imagine losing it all in the space of a split second and being engulfed by the daunting realisation that you’ll never reach the heights you bestowed upon yourself.

This is something both Ferland Mendy and Conway The Machine had to come to terms with as they sat on their respective hospital beds being told by their doctors that the one thing that made them special was now impossible to do.

Ferland Mendy grew up in Ecqueville, a small commune located to the west of Paris. And like any Parisian child, it was football he dreamed of one day being able to play professionally. And it was for Paris Saint-Germain he dreamed of playing for. He was off to a good start because at the age of 9 he was deemed good enough to join their pre-academy. Born in 1995, he was placed in the same youth team as Presnel Kimpembe and Kingsley Coman, and he would progress nicely through every age group until he turned 15. And that’s when everything came crashing down.

Conway The Machine’s early life wasn’t as optimistic as Mendy’s. Born Demond Price in Buffalo, New York - the rapper’s early life was characterised by crime and violence in a city devoid of any hope and colour. In his early twenties, Price was constantly in and out of prison. And with every stint he spent inside, a deeper passion for making it out of this life and bettering himself began to fester. 

Price always dreamed of becoming a rapper. But he never fully committed to it. He claimed it was more of a fantasy too unattainable to actually go out and grasp due to the life he lived. It was probably a nice side thought to keep his brain occupied and away from the reality of his surroundings and where he was heading. But after his latest stint in prison, he was determined to not go back and to provide a better life for himself and his family. One of his friends from Buffalo who went by the stage name of Westside Gunn had just started his own record company and was hoping to sign Conway. There was a glimmering flicker of hope in a tunnel once so dark.’

But just as quickly as that hope was sparked, it was violently crushed. In 2012, in the early hours of the harsh Buffalo morning, Desmond Price was shot multiple times in the back of the head, neck and shoulder. The bullets left shrapnel and severe nerve damage which led to Bell’s palsy, a permanent paralysis on the right side of his face. Price had looked death in the eye and if it wasn’t for the sake of a few centimetres, it would’ve been the last thing he ever saw. 

Back to Ferland Mendy who, at the age of 15, excelling in one of the world’s most highly regarded academies, was informed by doctors that he had suffered hip arthritis and that there was a chance he’d never walk again. Mendy endured three months in a cast at the hospital, followed by a number months in a wheelchair which preceded 5-6 more months of intensive physiotherapy. By the end of it all, he somehow managed to learn to walk again, but his true passion of playing football, according to doctors, was dead.

Conway the Machine also had to relearn how to walk after the injuries sustained left him with temporary paralysis. He had to relearn how to communicate and eat without hurting the right side of his face and had to face the fact that this was how the world, how his kids, would see him for the rest of his life. You wouldn’t be surprised if someone descended into a state of mania after receiving such life-altering injuries. In fact, with someone in Price’s position, so close to making something of himself, you’d perhaps expect it.

But the aspiring rapper’s perspective on reaching his dreams didn’t change. In fact, it only got stronger.

To have to relearn how to walk again at the age of 15, which is such a crucial stage of development for every single footballer, should’ve been it for Ferland Mendy’s career aspirations. Whilst he was wasting away in hospital, his agemates were lapping up valuable experience in more demanding environments and going through great physical development. Mendy, after learning how to walk, had to learn how to kick a ball again. And yet, just like Conway, he was still determined on becoming a footballer.

In fact, he never even thought of anything else but becoming a footballer. Not making it, despite everything that had happened, didn’t even enter his mind frame. No matter what the doctors told young Ferland, he says he was ‘still bound to end up as a pro’. 

And so he kept pushing, playing through all the pain in his hip until he was back at PSG. But he wasn’t really back. The likes of Kimpembe and Coman were now miles ahead of him in their stages of development and so Mendy found himself playing in the development team rather than the actual academy. It was then when he decided to leave his boyhood club and move to the French 4th division at 17 to rebuild his fitness properly.

Conway The Machine says that his injury turned his whole life around for the better. Instead of becoming disillusioned and discouraged by his circumstances, he became obsessed with not letting them be his excuse. He learned to embrace his new slurred speech and the snarl which came as a consequence of his paralysis.

He took the lessons of relentless work-ethic he learned in the streets and applied it to his music. He drowned himself in his craft, he took the Marvin Gaye and Al Green influences he grew up with at his Grandmother’s and combined it with the NWA and Wu-Tang sounds synonymous with his uncles, to create a raw and vociferous sound in the US that hadn’t been heard for the last 20 years. The self-doubt manifested itself in the early stages of Conway’s recovery but in the end he decided he just had to keep pushing, to go even more, to work smarter instead of harder.

Mendy’s decision to join FC Mantes in hindsight looks like a stroke of genius. He was able to build his body up to full fitness at his own pace, avoiding the high-pressurised environment of elite academy football. And when he was ready, back at the level, he wasted no time reminding everyone who he was. A transfer to Le Havre ensued and that’s where he remained for 4 years until 2017 when he moved to Lyon. 

It was his tenacity and superb defensive ability which caught the eye of Europe’s biggest clubs whilst at Lyon. He was impressive enough for Real Madrid to spend nearly £50 million on him in 2019. And just like that, he was a galactico.

It’s an interesting one, because on the one hand you can say that if Mendy never had to spend over a year re-learning how to play football, we never know how high he could’ve gone. But what if the reason he carved out the career he did for himself at elite football was because of that horrible injury? What if it was unwavering work-ethic and ‘never say die’ attitude he learnt on the road to rehabilitation which turned him into the player he became on the pitch.

It’s the same with Conway Machine. Now one of the most successful and celebrated rappers of the 2010s, does he ever go onto become the man he becomes if he doesn’t go through that life-threatening ordeal? He’ll tell you no. In many ways, the artist he became is a result of what he had to go through all those years ago. And now he’s an inspiration for the city of Buffalo and the rap world as a whole.

These are both tales of huge significance that go far deeper than the football fields and recording studios. These are stories which show people at their weakest moments still refusing to give up, still fighting and doing everything they can to achieve their dreams no matter what anybody else tells them.

 As the title of Conway’s debut album says: ‘God Don’t Make Mistakes.’ And if that’s the case and these guys can fulfill their biggest dreams despite going through what they had to go through, then what’s our excuse.