The Real Rick Ross Stands Up

Below this interview, you’ll find an exclusive excerpt from Freeway Rick Ross: The Untold Story

“Freeway” Rick Ross sits at a corner booth at Denny’s on Crenshaw Blvd. in Los Angeles and stirs his Earl Grey tea and adds a spot of honey. “Someone wants to buy ten T-shirts. He’s a new hustler,” he says ecstatically as he puts down his cell phone. He smiles and brushes off the egg scramble he accidently dropped on his T-shirt, which reads “THE REAL RICK ROSS IS NOT A RAPPER.” He now is selling shirts like these, as opposed to crack.

The now 53-year-old drug kingpin was introduced to cocaine dealing at age 19 and spent the next three decades in and out of prison for various offenses. He first got into trouble for selling stolen auto parts when he was in his early-20s. His most publicized arrest was in 1995, when he was set up by notorious smuggler and government agent Oscar Danilo Blandon and the DEA, for trying to purchase more than 100 kilograms of cocaine. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, but, after a Federal Court of Appeals case, his sentence was eventually reduced to 14 years. He was released from prison on September 29, 2009.

Ross still recalls the poverty of his youth. “BeforeI started selling drugs, our cabinet doors were falling off at my mom’s house. We had holes in the cabinets where rats used to come up. We had roaches. It was just terrible.” He continues, “When I started having money, I rebuilt my mom’s house. I wanted a better life for myself, so I sold drugs. It’s what I knew.”

These days, Ross is currently working on numerous projects, one of which is getting financial backing for a Nick Cassavetes-helmed feature biopic about himself. In a similar vein, the documentary A Crack in the System by director-producer Marc Levin will be released in the spring. Ross is currently writing and editing his autobiography Freeway Rick Ross: The Untold Autobiography with journalist Cathy Scott, which will be released in February. The book will chronicle Ross’s life and attempt to explain the decisions he has made. There also is a cable TV miniseries based on the book that’s currently in development with producer Mark Wolper, who’s also executive producing a remake of the miniseries Roots for History.

Noisey: When you were three, you watched your mother Annie Mae Mauldin kill your uncle George with a handgun. What was that experience like? How has it affected you to this day?
Rick Ross:I loved my uncle. At the time, he was probably the man in my life, and I looked up to him. I loved the way he drove his car. He used to do a little trick every time he came home. He would always open the door and stick his foot out of it, like he was stopping the car like The Flintstones. I got a kick out of it. To lose him was devastating. Having him gone and my mom in jail for a period of time was hard. She was away from me, so now I’m in a strange place with strange people living with my mom’s boyfriend’s mother.

How long was your mother in prison for? Did you resent her for killing your uncle?
I don’t remember. It was a short period. She got off with self-defense, I believe. They didn’t keep her. I understood what she was going through, and I know my mom wasn’t somebody who just killed people. My mom was a Christian, churchgoing person. I was there when my uncle stabbed my auntie, so I saw that, too. I saw the blood. I was standing right on the side of my mom when she shot my uncle. I could even hear him breathing when he was lying on the floor trying to get his breath.

Photo by Danielle Bacher

In your book excerpt, you mention that, at Bret Harte Junior High, a .38 pistol was staring you in the face. Was this your first encounter with a gun? Why did Sleepy, a Denver Lanes gang member, want to kill you?
He didn’t want to kill me. I was hanging out with Moo Moo, one of the founders of the 107th Street gang for the Crips, and they had been fighting with the Denver Lanes. I don’t know what started it, but the Crips and the Bloods had been fighting for about four or five years. The first time I knew they fought was at Manchester Park. Some guy Bubblegum, I think, killed a Blood there. After that, it kept escalating. Moo Moo knew what was going on, and they saw Sleepy and took off. I didn’t know. I thought he was going to shoot at first. It was the first time I had a gun pointed in my direction. It was like, “Wow.”

Did you ever feel inclined to join the Bloods or the Crips, since you were working with them extensively selling drugs?
I wanted to be a Crip when I was young, like 12 or 13. I thought Moo Moo was the coolest dude in the world. But I started playing tennis, so I didn’t join. I also hung out with a guy named Bam, a good friend of mine, who was in the Crips. He made me feel surer of walking out, because they would give him props.

In 1988, the first time you got caught selling drugs, a load of coke was detected by a drug-sniffing dog in New Mexico. How were the drugs traced back to you?
We didn’t know the drugs had been detected in New Mexico. So we go to the bus station to get the carrier from the bus station and the bag. When we were going inside the bus station, I looked and my beeper was gone. I went back to the car to get my beeper. I walked back and looked, and I saw two guys standing around my guy Al, and they’re like tussling. So they take Al to jail. I find out later that Al was in the police files as being one of my guys. When he went in and said that he was looking for a bus from LA, they just grabbed him. When I saw the cops, I jumped back in the car and took off. They put it in my file so, later on, they indicted me for that same bag. He did 20 years behind bars because he didn’t tell.

How did they prove that it was your bag if they didn’t see you?
Later on, they got guys to testify in Cincinnati, and they said they knew I was going to pick that bag up. And they knew that Al got caught for going to get the bag. In the drug war, they don’t really need a lot of the things you think would need to be evidence. Search-and-seizure and all those things are out the window. They tried to say the bag was mine, but I couldn’t contest to search, which I should be able to do if it’s my bag. I didn’t give them permission to search it.

How did you meet Oscar Danilo Blandon?
I had made contact with some Nicaraguans, and I had been working with his brother-in-law Henry. Henry had gotten scared. I guess the business was getting too big for him. He came to me and asked me if I would give him $60,000 to meet Danilo. He sold him to me and me to him. He charged Danilo $60,000, as well.

How did you feel when he set you up in 1995? Did you have any idea he was working with the DEA?
No, I didn’t. I was totally taken aback, and I felt betrayed at the highest level too have somebody testify on you that you did so much with and had so much respect for. I haven’t spoken to him since he set me up. The last thing I remember was when the police were chasing me, and I passed by him. He was standing outside his car with one of the agents that planned the connect, and they were laughing at me.

Why do you think he turned on you?
He was looking at two life sentences, I believe. We never saw the paperwork to say why they cut his time. I’m the only person that he ever testified against or set up. They gave him an illegal green card. He wasn’t allowed to set me up. He wasn’t even allowed to contact me, because he was not a U.S. citizen. He had been convicted of a felony drug offense, which is deportation, no waivers, no ifs, ands, or buts. There are only two people that could have allowed him to stay in the country: the Attorney General and the President of the United States. If they didn’t have a letter from one of those two people, he could not be in the country legally. That whole case was BS. They totally fabricated the case so that one of the biggest drug dealers in history got out of jail in less than 28 months.

Photo by Danielle Bacher

Did you have any idea the magnitude of the Iran-Contra scandal? Did you know the CIA was involved in, or at least permitting, the drug running?
I didn’t. I was illiterate at the time. I had heard about it, but I never gave it any thought. Oscar mentioned he had a war going on in his country and that they had lost their land and were trying to get it back.

Did you cook your own crack?
After a while. People just didn’t teach you how to cook. You have to pay for that. Eventually I learned to do it myself. I watched the cook do it over and over and over again. They put this fear in you that you can’t do it. If you only got $300 worth of coke and you fuck it up, you’re done. When you have an ounce, if you lose $300 worth, you can absorb it. Eventually I got to the point where I tried it. I had become too big for him.

Did you ever try your products? If so, were you in fear that you would become addicted?
I tried it. I went on a one- or two-week party, and when we first started we did a half-ounce, which was $1,100-1,200 worth of drugs. When we finished, we had like $300 left. You get caught up in the moment. It wasn’t about the money anymore. It was about the rush, the thrill.

After that day, I vowed never to use it again.

Did you ever feel bad that the drugs you were providing for your community were harming people?
I did around 1987. I wouldn’t necessarily use the phrase “harming people.” I think a better phrase would be “addicting people.” When you say “harming people,” you see something physically wrong with them, like “Oh, you just cut his arm off.” I never saw that. What I did see is people spending all their money on drugs. People were quitting their jobs to sell drugs, but they were using, too.

How did it feel going from being poor to a multi-millionaire so quickly?
Lovely. There are just so many things that money buys. Money buys knowledge. That’s why poor people are at such a disadvantage in the world, because when you don’t have money, you become ignorant.

Did you ever feel your life was in danger?
I was almost kidnapped one time when I was 23. I probably had a few hundred thousand dollars at that point. I was lying on my mom’s couch, and I didn’t have on a shirt or any shoes. I parked my car the wrong way on the street. When my mom came home, she told me to move it. I pulled the car around and parked on the right side of the street. The guy had a pretty girl with him, and the next thing I know he pulled a pistol out. They were trying to rob me. The guy put a gun to my head and told me to get into my car, but I didn’t. I made up my mind I wasn’t going to let anyone kidnap me. I was going to let him shoot me right there in the street. He had the gun right up to my head, but I was able to make a move. He was telling the girl to get in the other side of the car, and when he did that, I grabbed his hand so I was able to twist it behind his back and make him drop the gun. The girl picked up the gun and started shooting. I let him go, and I took off.

Do you ever think you will get back into drug dealing again?
Not illegal drugs, but yeah, I have those moments. I know what I could do if I wanted to sell drugs again, knowing all the things that I know right now—I could probably do it instantly. I know how to go to a city and find the big guy in town. I know that you can go to Colombia and find the people that grow it. These are things that I’ve learned that I would do totally different than I did last time. But I also know now that you don’t need $10 million to do business. I could see myself owning a pharmacy.

How did you teach yourself to read in jail?
Well, my cellmate made some cue cards. He started telling me that, when you read, you have to sound your words out. You have to know the sounds of the words. I knew what A and B were, but I didn’t know B had the “buh” sound. When you mix them, they have a different sound. My cellmate got me to understand that. I started it the first time in jail. I think I read two books: Malcolm X’s autobiography and Anthony Robbins Awake the Giant Within. Malcolm X couldn’t read either when he went to prison. I started to see the similarities in our lives, and I started to think maybe I can do what he did. I took reading really seriously the second time inside, because I started reading law books.

Photo by Andres Herren

Did you ever think about how you couldn’t read, but could make a multimillion-dollar empire for yourself?
Drugs don’t care if you can read. There are three things you really need to know about drugs. The first and most important one is: don’t get high. The second is: you need to know how to count. And the last is: don’t give anyone your sack. Once you know those principles, you can sell drugs.

You have a film written by Nick Cassavetes in the works. Have you found anyone willing to give you $36 million to make the film yet?
I’ve talked to a lot of people who said they are contemplating giving me the $36 million. Nobody has put it in the bank yet. Let me say this here: this film is going to happen. I’m going to see it through. Even if I have to sell a one-and-a-half million T-shirts to get the movie done, that’s what I am going to do. It’s going to get made.

Why did you sue rapper Rick Ross over using your name? Is the case still ongoing?
Yes, it’s still ongoing. I sued him for several reasons. One, that’s my name. That’s my legacy, and I should be entitled to use it and benefit from licensing it to other people. I don’t think he should be able to sell my name and use it. The message that he’s rapping is totally fabricated, and it sends the wrong message to kids. Him and guys like Jay-Z. I just read an article in Vanity Fair, in which Jay-Z describes selling drugs, and he doesn’t sound like a drug dealer. He sounds like a news reporter who heard about drugs. It’s like somebody wrote down a script for him. Jay-Z was nothing compared to what I was in the drug business. This is why I want William Roberts to stop using my name and change his name back. What’s wrong with William Roberts? Especially now that he has grown. He’s already established. He’s rich and famous. Switch up and let people know the truth.

What’s the other Rick Ross’s position on all this?
He never gave his position to me. When I was incarcerated, I had a friend that worked for a magazine and he told me that he would be in the office and that I should call. When I called, my friend handed him the phone and he never told him who he was talking to. When he gets on the phone, he says “Hello,” and I said, “Hey, what’s up? It’s Rick Ross,” and he just broke down like a little bitch. He said, “Oh, big homie, I love you.” You know, just like jerking me off. “When I started using your name is when my album started to bubble. I let some of the homies listen to my music, and when I mention your name, their ears perked up.” He told me he owed me and how much he appreciated me and appreciated using my name. The last time I saw him he was rolling his eyes like a little woman. Like I was doing him wrong for saying I wanted to get my just due. There can be a resolution tomorrow; I’m ready right now.

What was your prison experience like? How did the guards and other inmates treat you?
The inmates, they loved me. I’m like an LA celeb. The Hoover Crips are one of the biggest gangs in jail. They protected me, but I didn’t ask for it. They would tell me stuff like, “You think we would let anything happen to you? You the big homie.” I got along with everybody. Everybody respected me because of my personality and how I carry myself. Guys in prison used to tease me all the time about doing all this studying. They didn’t think I was ever getting out of jail. People hate because they are in a certain situation and they want you to stay in that situation, too. A lot of the guys are hoping you won’t get out.

And now, how does it feel being a regular guy again?
I feel a lot safer.

Danielle Bacher is a columnist at Playboy and LA Weekly as well as a contributing writer for Rolling Stone, Esquire, Village Voice, LA Times and Interview Magazine. Follow her on Twitter – @DBacherwrites

Read an exclusive excerpt from Freeway Rick Ross: The Untold Autobiography below.