By Jayar JacksonDrug kingpin turned rapper Rick Ross is taking some serious heat for his “shaky” past. No, the police are not after him for “making a couple million dollars last year dealin weight.”
They’re not even looking into the hundred favors that “the real Noriega” owes Ross. Rick Ross, aka William Roberts is under fire from hip hop fans that are upset or laughing that his connection to drug kingpins was only while locking them up.
After pictures of a young, clean shaven Ross surfaced last week of him shaking hands as a newly crowned corrections officer, many hip hop fans were in disbelief that this virtual Tony Montana lied to them. “The Boss” proceeded to vehemently deny the accusations, saying that the picture was photoshopped by haters trying to bring him down from the top of the game.
“If this s**t was real don't you think they would have more specifics, like dates and everything? Fake pictures are created by the fake, meant to entertain the fake.”Mr. Roberts failed to remember what many of our politicians let slip their minds: we keep records of everything; we videotape and take pictures of everything else. So, with his desperate denials out there, the Smoking Gun produced the specifics he was asking for. The dates, salary, and length of time he worked for Florida’s Department of Corrections. Whoops!
Now, let’s keep it gangsta. (I won’t say that anymore.) Does it really matter that William Leonard Roberts was a 19 year old corrections officer for 18 months back in ’95? Does it matter that he talks about knowing the real Noriega? Actually, if you ever really believed that this performer that graced stages and recorded albums was stupid enough to be out on the streets “pushin weight” for a couple million dollars last year, then you should be upset with yourself. Maybe he was talking about pushing your weight to the record store to buy his “street life” music you envied him for.
Hip hop started as a way for the artists to talk about their lives and where they come from. Sometimes the stories spoke of the horrors of the streets, drugs, and crime. This used to educate the people that didn’t live that life about the things that happened outside of their little bubble. Somehow, this ugly street life that no one desires to live turned into a desirable goal by the kids that never lived it. Somewhere along the way, these kids changed their dreams from wanting to go to pharmacy school to just being a street pharmacist. Since some real “Gs” made fame and fortune rapping about their past, everyone else saw the benefits of gangsta rap. If you didn’t live it, just make it up!We’re so wrapped up in the soap opera that many performers write for us, we’ve been missing how ridiculous the storyline has gotten. Now that one of the script writers has been exposed as a legitimate, law abiding citizen, some are upset?? Trust me, Hulk Hogan didn’t actually get stronger every time The Ultimate Warrior hit him with the chair at Wrestlemania. And what’s so wrong with never being locked up, never getting shot 5 times, and never helping turn your neighborhood into a war zone?
We need to make up our minds about hip hop and our community. One minute, we blame the rappers for writing misogynistic, profanity-laden lyrics about selling drugs and shooting people. We want them to stop glorifying a murderous street life and stop setting negative examples for our kids. Then we call them suckers when it’s discovered that they’re married to their high school sweetheart that they lost their virginity to, they have 2 kids that live in the suburbs, and every time little Ricky swears, he has to put his allowance in the Swear Jar.