Maybach Music Group leader Rick Ross finally explains his short-lived stint as a corrections officer in the mid-1990’s and what person inspired him to get a 9-to-5 in the new Rolling Stone.
Based on an excerpt from his cover feature, Ricky Rozay reveals a family friend suggested he get any paying job during his youth.
For the first time, Ross talks about his past life as a corrections officer – an opportunity, he says, to “wash my hands” after his best friend was sentenced to 10 years for trafficking cocaine and heroin: “This was my best friend, who I ate peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches with, and pork and beans with, my buddy, my partner, my number-one dude. Suddenly I’m talking to him over federal phone calls. Hearing the way it was building, I knew I couldn’t take nothing for granted,” says Ross. “My homey’s father was a huge influence on my life, too . . . He was the one who was like, ‘Yo, go get a job somewhere, man. Go be a fireman. Or go be a f*cking corrections officer. Just go sit down somewhere.” (Rolling Stone)
Last summer, Philadelphia rapper Beanie Sigel defended Ross in light of corrections officer criticism.
“I just don’t think he should have lied about it,” Sigel said in an interview. “He should have just kept it real. He had a j-o-b. He was gigging. He probably took that job to be in a position where as though he had people in there that he could look out for. My mom was a correctional officer. When I went to jail, there was n*ggas who had the will. Life. Never coming home…” (Forbez DVD)
Rap veteran Kool G. Rap also weighed in on the C.O. debate a couple years ago.
“I don’t pay attention to all that sh*t,” Kool said in an interview. “To me, if dude was a C.O. or whatever, dude was making a living. And I ain’t gonna get too much into this sh*t because I’m not trying to make a circus out of this sh*t, because I’m not one to promote controversy and I’m not one to try to down another man out there doing his thing. What I will say is, I don’t see a problem if he woulda just said, ‘Yeah, I did that, but I’m doing this now.’ Rather than people trying to use that to bring him down, he coulda just came clean and just said it like, ‘Yo, I’ma real dude. I used to do this, but I’m doing this now.’ So I would never try to down [him] for what he do or anything like that, I just think – hip-hop is a game where people appreciate you when you’re more honest.” (Hip Hop DX)
Despite initial denials, Ross eventually confessed to the corrections rumors in March 2009.
“The Boss done did it all to get money,” Ross said. “And what you gotta understand is, if rumors surface it wasn’t because, people felt like I didn’t address it. It wasn’t because of my selfish reasons, but what you gotta understand is that when you answer certain things, you gotta go to what was going on and who was involved, what the situation really was. So what we did was we got with BET and we chronicle my life so people can understand that by the time I was 17 years-old, 18 years-old, I was in a nice home, I was in whips, I was doing a lot of different things and I made a few moves…If Rick Ross did work at one of these places, it wasn’t for the obvious reasons. There’s a lot of gold mines around people’s faces that they don’t really know how to take advantage of…Yeah that picture is Rick Ross.” (“Big Boy’s Neighborhood”)
