Rick Ross C.O. Fiasco

So as many of you have probably heard TheSmokingGun.com has verified that rapper Rick Ross did indeed work as a Corrections Officer in Florida for 18 months. Ross, who has built his career on the idea that he was a big time coke dealer and hustler in Miami's Dade County attempted to deny the reports until TSG was able to obtain paystubs from the Florida Department of Corrections.


The backlash against Ross has been really harsh. The way that people are reacting to the news it makes sense that Ross would try to cover this up. In the long run I really don't get why people are bugging over this, Ross did what what every other rapper on the planet is guilty of doing: creating a commercially viable hypermasculine alter-ego. If you think Jay-Z and them were actually pushing weight and busting rounds you need to get real. Most of the rappers out there are no different than actors, and I don't mean that in a disparraging way, they're providing their audience with entertainment in the same way an actor in an action film would. This Rick Ross business is the equivilant of getting heated at Tarantino because he doesn't have bodies under his belt.


Cornell Dews astutely asks us to really consider the absurdity of this situation:

Has the COINTEL PRO infiltrated hip hop? I swear we’re working on some counter intelligence shit. As a community we’re thinking the wrong way; contrary to the right course; in the reverse or opposite direction, which is by definition counter intelligence. Check this out. We’re mad if you “lied” about knowing Noriega and the claim that he owes you a hundred favors. But we applaud if you do know Noriega from (we’re assuming) past dealings which meant that you was involved in drug trafficking that helped lead to the destruction of the same community from which we come. We’re mad if you “lied” about the money you made on the streets and the “bodies” you caught in the process, when in actuality you graduated high school and attended a historically black college on an athletic scholarship. Which we can derive meant you were a decent student athlete. We’re mad if you “lied” about going to prison, when instead you worked at one. Can’t yall see that we’re mad about the wrong shit?

For Dew's full post click here.

Personally, I like Rick Ross and I hope his career isn't destroyed over such stupid shit. Maybe he'll start talking about his experience as a C.O. I got to say though, it would be way more interesting to hear him talk about his experience as a black man working in the prison-industrial-complex, then the same old rhymes about guns, drugs, and women.