Fake Rick Ross v.s. Real Rick Ross
William Leonard Roberts II (pictured left) is a rapper who assumed the name of one of the most famous crack dealers in L.A., Freeway Ricky Ross (right), who made $600 million in 2 years, pulling himself up out of the ghetto through swift business acumen.
Fake Rick Ross: "Only lived once and I got two kids/ And for me to feed them, I'll get two gigs," he raps. "I'll shovel shit, I'll C.O./ So we can bow our heads and pray over the meatloaf." Although, he provided no explanation for lying about being a Correctional Officer to begin with, nor did he explain why he failed to pay child support for his children, the former 'cool-hunter-turned-hegemonic-tool' MTV named Ross as the Hottest MC in the Game.
Real Rick Ross: Freeway Ricky was unable to read or write until the age of 28, at which point he was imprisoned. With the support of flash cards made by his cellmate, he learned to read out of the motivation to study law books and find a loophole in the 3 strikes rule under which he was incarcerated to lift the sentence he was given to life in the US Penitentary for recurrent non-violent crime. After nearly a decade of unabating search, he found what his Harvard-trained lawyer had missed, and broke himself out legally. Ricky also hired a private detective to track the cop witnesses used in his case and exposed their corrupt crookery (beating people, planting drugs, lying on police reports, ect). Now he gives kids the real scoop on why it's dangerous to get in the drug game, but doesn't judge those who do because he understands the circumstance of living ghetto and being literally on your last dollar. Since he sprung himself, he's been working on a documentary Crack in the System, which shines a light on his 20 year experience with the carceral system, and how unbeknownst at the time, his dealing days were a pawn in the Nixon Administration's Iran-Contra scandal, for which no officials were jailed.
This Joe Rogan interview with the real Freeway Rick Ross - whose moniker came from his owning properties along the Los Angeles Harbor Freeway- is fascinating, inspirational, and illustrates Ricky's thoroughly admirable character. Two highlights: RR on brainwashing: "[Television and media makes kids think] you can't be important if you don't live this image".. JR: "There's no one is policing the police. There's no one governing the government. That's the real issue.. [They got the guns, and not only that] they can change the laws. And we see what the fuck is going on now with this country. Every week they come up with some new, even more restrictive, even more Orwellian law that gets through that allows them to tap your phones with with no warrants, listen in on your phone calls, tap your fuckin' GPS systems so they can follow everywhere you go. And they can do all this shit without warrants now. And they do it supposedly under the guise of terrorism. But it's really under the guise of making it easier for them to prosecute you for whatever the fuck they want to. Cuz there's a goddamn business in locking people up in cages."
