#153 - Freeway Rick Ross

had a great interview, man, super dope interview. This motherfucker loves to talk. Shout out Freeway, Ricky Ross, super nice guy. I feel like we kind of hit the interview from a different angle. So I'm super excited for everyone to listen. Plus, gotta give a big shout out to uh our good folks over at odd Socks. All right, listen, odd Socks. They just showed me a preview of their new WWE socks. They're fucking nuts, man, they got these this wrestle Mania series.

I'm pretty sure by the time you hear this, they're going to be out. The WrestleMania series is insane. Odd Socksofficial dot Com go over there, and get some odd socks, crazy licenses, WWE, Breaking Bad, Godfather, Scarface, nickelode and they got it all. Use the promo code Bootleg keV save twenty percent off your order. Let's get into the podcast boutlet cash Show. We got a special guest in here. This guy's a legend Freeway Ricky Ross is in the building.

What's up, keV. Man, it's good to finally meet you. Shout out to my guy amor who connected us. I feel like I've been trying to interview you for so long. I just ended up streets along the streets every day. Man, was just hot out. It's good to finally meet you. Man. Obviously, I've been following your story for a really long time.

You've done such a good job of building an enterprise, building, building up just different streams of revenues that you got out of since you got out, Man, I mean, I feel like you just you got out in the real work started right, Yeah, ain't no question, Well not really, because I worked when I was in jail. Believe it or not, I did not have enough time. When I was in jail. I wanted more time, really, yeah, I wished I had more time. So how would you spend

your days like and in what ways? Were you still working on outside stuff while you were incarcerated? Every day? Every day, you know, I was getting schooled by Wendy Day on marketing. Whinny Day's legend in the music industry. Yep, it was one of my personal coaches. You know. We emailed back and forth four or five times a day. I just I just tried to stay touch and in

touch with the streets. You know, what was going on, who was moving You know, you'd be surprised of some of the people that that I was communicating with from behind the bars. Who was somebody? I mean, obviously you mentioned Whinny Day, but were there any anybody else that whether it was actors, directors, artists, musicians that would snoop dre they all reached out. They necessarily didn't reach out reach out to them. You know, I knew somebody with connections.

Bernard Hopkins, uh cha, Bernard Hopkins, Berner Hopkins, a real one. Who else? A lot of people? You know, I found the alcoholics while I was in jail. You found the licks. I found the licks. He's talking about Tash king T. Well. King t was a part of the liquor. King T was was you know King I listened to King T. I'd beat the King of hip hop. I did not listen to King What. What did King T tell you? Well? I was. I was hanging out with Dick Griffy by the way, shout out to jer Row and East Swift.

I just want to make sure I know all three. I know all three members of the Licks. I was hanging out with a guy by name of Older Smith who was the owner of Beverly Glen Music. Uh. He introduced me to Dick Griffy Berry Guardy And at the same time, I'd already started dipping into hip hop. This is while you're no, no, this is before before okay, this is before NWA. At that time, my DMC might have been this is like early to maze yep. Yeah, yeah,

So I was already dipping in hip hop. We had the DJ equipment and you know, we're doing we're doing a little thing. King T told me to mess with him DJ pooh, But instead I gave the money to Oldiest Smith to do a need a Baker's first record. Wow. And had I known that hip hop was going to be what it became, I would have went on and did DJ Pooh album anyway instead of not doing it. You know, I still could have did it, but I was like this young boy, he was only about seventeen

years old. Yeah, King T FOREO. People don't give him enough credit. He's one of the young pioneers and La Dre learned how to work the drum machine from Master Spade and King T. Now King T doesn't get enough flowers, Oh,

no question. Well you know, and and that's why when when when when King T was going through his little thing, you know, dra gave my deal, right, I don't remember what year it was, but but Dre gave me a nice little deal, you know, trying to try to try to boost him up, get him back on his feet. But yeah, King T had told me to mess with hip hop. Was like, stick with the hip hop, stick

with the hip hop. And and you know, I'm listening to these guys that got platinum albums and and and you know, walls decorated looked like your wall right here. So I'm like, who do you listen to the seventeen year old kid or the pioneers of of of R and B and uh. It was it was a decision that was easy for me to make. You know, I went with them. Of course, how did you discover the licks from? From? Well? When when when I was in MDC, as soon as I walked in the door, the first

person I ran into was HARRYO. So HARRYO pulled me into his selle. We were Selly's and you and harry we were sellis. Yeah, we were Selly's. Okay, when when they started death row Okay, Okay, that's that's that's crazy to know because I mean, just the chances of that happening, like you guys ended up. I mean, but you know, you're talking about guys who who pretty much ran the streets out of here. And even though we wasn't really good friends on the street, you know, we we were

kind of competible. You know, you want to be you don't want to be in to sale with somebody that you can't talk to, relate to, you relate to, you know, you want to be with somebody that you can relate to. If you're gonna have a selle, first you don't want to sell it. But if you're gonna have one, you want somebody to be somebody who you could actually be friends with her. Yes, So when I leave MDC and

go to the pen in Arizona. I get to the pen, they turn on b T and there there was snooping doctor dre one A seven on the undercover cop in the Arizona Phoenix Arizona or which was a buckeye. No black Canyon. Okay, okay, the name of the FCI Phoenix is what it's called. But it's in Black Canyon. So when I saw that, I was like, damn, Harry Finna make it. You know, death Row is Finn Blow. So I got right on the phone, man where King t At, give me King T number. So they gave me King

T number. I was like, man, I need an artist, and he was like, my video finish drop Saturday. Look at my video. Let me know if you like these little dudes. It was licks alcoholics. Man, shout out to Tash and those guys. And then it was even colder than that. They living with my cousin really related to you. You didn't even know it. Yeah, they was living with my cousin. So it was it was a real easy fix. And then uh, Fade, I don't know if you know,

Fade Debian got all faith. Well, Fade was also Fade was at that time, Fate was a head promoter over Loud Records, but he was gonna quit Loud Records and come and run Freeway Records for me. Wow. So doing that transition, he got the job over then the scope mm hmm. And he was still gonna quit though, and come and and and and and run my label. That was that was our plan. He was gonna quit his job and come run my label. I go to the whole. That's when one of my partners was in the hole.

He telling me to call this girl and and and uh, the case manager called me and locked me up. So when I go to the hole, I'm in the hole, like thirty days, no phone call, no mail, no nothing. Fae signed him the Loud Records Wow. Yeah, because they ended up on Loud with like that's how that's how they ended up on a round with with with the risks, and they probably could have should have ended up on

the Freeway Records. Yeah, they should have. And and then you know, I was, you know, I was kind of due too where I wasn't gonna like sweat, you know, like it wasn't their fault that I went to the hole. And and even though we had already agreed on on the deal and everything. I just like, go ahead, y'all, do y'all thing. So take me back. You said that

you bankrolled Anita Baker's first record. Mm hm, So how did because you know, obviously in your position, do you have a lot of money that you need to put places and you need to Yeah, I was looking for I was looking for legitimate businesses, things that get me out of the dope game. Of course I didn't want to be in the dope game. So how how does this Anita Baker story happen? Because I mean, obviously you told us you linked with you just said his name.

I'm sorry OLDA Smith, Odas Smith. When I was in high school and another mistake I made not being young, you know, not really understanding business. At the time, I was a tennis player. Okay. Older Smith had a son that he wanted to be a professional tennis player. His son was about three years younger than me. So Oldest would come pick me up from high school, would pay me twenty dollars for me. At that time, that was

a lot of money. Yeah, twenty bucks back then, I mean twenty bucks in the nineties was let we'll buy me tennis shoes. We'll buy me rackets to go and play with his son. I played with his son, just boyut every day after school. I would finish at the tennis team, do my little tennis practice at the school, and then he would pick me up. We'd go to Beverly Hills, Hollywood. It was another place where Kennedy got killed at. It used to be a tennis club, really

nice tennis club. He was a few tennis clubs. He was the only black that went there. Nobody else La Tennis Club in Hollywood. He was the only member for the longest. There was no other black member beside Oders Smith in that club. So he would take me to those places and I would play with the son, you know, our hour and twenty minutes whatever whatever time it took us to play a couple sets. So I grew up. Though after I was sixteen seventeen, I think seventeen eighteen,

I stopped playing with him. I dropped out of high school and went back to the streets. So we hadn't saw each other for years. And all this is in my book if you get a chance to year book. It's been out for a while too, about five years. But they still don't nobody know about it. It's still kind of like unknown, you know on Amazon. I'm sure, don't go Amazon and get it. Don't go No, should they go go to Freeway Ricky Ross and get my book by the book there, Well you can get an autographed.

You get it autographed, and you get to keep all the money you don't got to give Amazon there cutting Yeah, I don't want to get Jaffizo nothing. He's got enough. Hain't no Jeff, Yeah, a rich motherfucker's go to space. So, uh I loved Otis, let me say that there. Yeah. So one day I'm just like chilling out right here in Santa Monic. It was. It was a professional tennis tournament going on, and I ain't seen notice in five six years. You know, I got ham on my face.

Now I'm a grown man getting money. I ain't sixteen no more. And I got about two three million dollars cash and I'm at the tennis court. I'm by myself. You know, no no homies don't want to go to no tennis match and just kick back on the bench and got my hand, got my cell phone and you know, just relaxing. This is a relaxed to day and I look up. There was little oldest nice like six feet three and hit his son. His son, Yeah, hitting the ball the time. And he's playing against No. One guy

from Stanford. Big guy looks like a linebacker. And they start arguing. And then the guy from Stanford, the whole team is back in him. Otis. He's playing at UCLA, the only black guy on the team, nobody backing him. He's by myself. I said, man, I'll better get some help. So I got on the phone. I called all the guys. I was like, man, some white boys fan to jump on me out here in Santa Mona. Come atoo. You know they was in La we in Santa Monic. They

was there in like five minutes. I heard motorcycles tired, screeching, and to hell of a that's a hell of a time to get that far. As soon as they come, the kid who little Otis is arguing with hit the daddy in the eye, damn. And then my guys just coming over the fence. I see him coming over the fence and they looking at me like he do that. And they don't even know Otis, but they just know it's a black guy and a white guy fighting, so and then I just gave him a nod and they

wouldn't handle their business. So when they broke it all, I went and broke it all up. I didn't want none of my guys went to jail. So that relationship kept. It started all over again. It started all over in that day. So Oldest don't even know that I did that for him, right, Like, he don't know what happened. He just no. Man, damn, somebody saved my life because he was finna get massacred, I can imagine. So then the tennis coach, my high school tennis coach, comes up.

He's the one that introduced me the oldest because he knew I needed money in high school. So they started talking, and I'm just standing back to the side listening, you know, glad to see my old coach again, you know, because my coach was nice to me. You know, he helped me out a lot in life. So I Older started telling him about the music business because I never knew. I just knew. Oldest drove a brand new Rose Royce convertible. You know, I'm in the seventies, Like, I don't know

what you do. You know, I don't even care what you do, just keep giving me them twenties. So he was talking to Coach Smith about the music business and then he was like, man, Rick is the one that, uh you should be talking to. He got more money than seeing and and uh he oldis looked at me and he was trying to figure out did he know me? He's like little Rick. Man, He's like little Rick. He was like yeah. So then I came up. We shook hands, and he's like, man, it's been a long time. I

take you out for dinner. And uh then the coach said he probably won't to save your life out here. So the relationship started. The next day, he took me up to his office, you know, showed me all the plaques, you know, Johnny Taylor, he found Rick James, you know, uh his listen, he just he was just decorated. So I was already dipping in hip hop right then. You know, I was messing with some local rappers here and I had I had some rappers from Chicago. I'd already sent

four that eventually signed with Russell Simmons. What was the names six Pack or something like that. There. Uh they didn't get big, you know, they got a little mediocre local you know local celebrities. So Oldis started talking to me about this girl that he was going to produce, and he needed the money to produce her. He didn't even had the money to send for I gave him the money to sender her ticket from Detroit to come out here, and we got our apartment up in Hollywood

Heels and just started from there. I need a baker. I need a baker. I never got into the business though, you know, I just gave him the money. Here, here's the money, here's the money. So did you get a return on your investment? No, she jumped the label? She okay, she jumped the label went to I forgot the name of the label. I paid for the attorney, the sewer.

Oh wow, it's crazy because, like I think so many people have kind of like based on I guess the misconception that like snowfall is like directly about you, even though they didn't. They couldn't say that because they didn't drop the bag off, that they should have probably up the bag off for you. But they might be getting ready to drop it now, you know. I got the phone call. They want to they want to sit down.

They want to sit down. In terms of what though, I don't know in terms of like bringing you into the fold. You just told me they want me to come through the studio. What we're gonna talk about. I don't even know the Snowfall producers or the network or the show. I mean, obviously John Singerson passed away, Rest in peace. They say that he say it was a producer. I mean, but it's it it has to do with

Snowfall or is it separate? No, they Snowfall. I mean I mean because I mean, listen, if anyone who's familiar with your story, I mean, like what they know they changed commercials when they add the first commercials on Snowfall. My fans gave them the blues M hashtag and John Singleton Snowfall, I mean, FX all of them. Hey, this is Rick's story, y'all stole rick story? Yeah, I mean obviously it's not the same because then they then you could sue the living ship out of them. Have did

you try to suit? No? I thought about it. I talked to a few lawyers. It's a tough suit. It is a tough it's a tough lawsuit. It's a tough lawsuit. Intimate domain. You know, I got so much stuff in newspapers right and right right right right. So if you think about like the show, h I mean as far as the first season, I guess I guess how much of that do you feel like was really? I didn't

watch it, you didn't watch it. I only started watching the show after I got the call from Dave and he wanted me to come and be a part of his podcast after the Snow. Before that, I never watched No Fall. I probably had glanced, you know, passing by and and and and seeing it on TV. Now. I did have dinner a lunch with Franklin before. I was at Whole Foods downtown with the actor. Yeah, the English guy something Idris is his name. I forget his first name. I don't know his name, but it seems like I'm

terrible with names. Seems like a nice guy, very nice guy. I like him. So you guys had dinner, lunch, lunch. You guys had lunch. Did he like try to pick your brand? Or I was sitting there because I didn't know who he was. Okay, because you're like, I don't even watch the show. I don't watch the show. How would I know who you are? You know? And he walked up and he was like, you missed Ross and I was like yeah, and uh my managers were sitting there and they was like, that's a guy from Snowfall.

And I was like what. And I was like, sit down, you can sit down. So he sit down and we just started talking. He was like, man, I don't know why John ain't got you on the set. And I would do a much better job if I had you around. And you know, we just went through the little thing. You know, he probably was blowing a little smoke too. You know. Of course, of course he runs into you

and so but it was a cool conversation. Uh and and you know, we just got after we finished, and we just got up and we went our separate ways. So because obviously in the show, like it's very much kind of I mean, I'm assuming there wasn't a bunch of tennis players in your hood where you were growing up at, right, I mean, for black tennis players, we probably had the biggest black population of tennis players maybe in the country. You go from were you a good

student in school? Terrible terrible student, good athlete, though when I say terrible, I mean terrible as far as is doing the work and stuff. Like that. I didn't really like mess up a lot in school. I was a good kid. But I was a good kid. But applying yourself to school, I couldn't read it right. You couldn't read and write no, oh wow, okay, So take me like to like the is the parallels of the show

and the CIA. And obviously we all know that the contra wars are being funded through all this crazy ass ship that was going on with the CIA. Was that is that part accurated in terms of what you were dealing with with your plug and all that ship? I didn't know. I didn't know that my guy was a CIA operative. You didn't know until you were incarcerated. Right when when when Gary Webb broke the story? Is when I found out that the guy been getting my drugs

from was the CIA operative? And how long was that your guy? Like? Like was it from the jump? Like I sold drugs for eight years? He wasn't the main guy all along? But you know, you know in the drug business there's probably three or four guys in between there is, so you have to work your way through each level of of of of participants in order to

get to the top. Hunt show. Were there situations in which you felt like the fact that you were indeed dealing with law enforcement without knowing it, and that they kind of needed you out on the streets getting this money. You know, I had to totally totally opposite because you know, they had the Freeway Task Force, so they had the free but the freeway separate, they were separate, separate from them.

So the Freeway Task Forces is kicking my ass. That's the LAPD or lap LAPD and sheriffs which have no idea about this other thing that's going on over here at the CIA. They found out after they raided as well.

That do you think that they, like the CIA like maybe protected you in certain aspects where that could have been worse on the sheriff a LAPD, like was there like an invisible hand that maybe kind of cant thinks so handcuffed and hog tide your legs hog tide and beating the head with a flashlight and a dog by looking crazy. Do you think you were protecting what you feel like it was protected? Probably not? No, probably not.

So I didn't feel like I was protected. What was the first like time where you decided like this is something I need to really do. Was it because you know, like you said, like when it comes to dealing drugs, I've sold weed and other things. There's like a moment where you realize, oh, there's real money here, Like you start off a certain way, Like, at what point in time did you realize I could turn this into an enterprise.

Was it like after you've got your first key? No? No, my first my first fifty I got beat out of. I sold it to one of the big homies. Well I didn't sell it to him. We didn't know what it was, Memoribley who I was working. We didn't know. We didn't know what cocaine was. I never seen cocaine before. And this is prior to the crack era really kicking it. Yeah, this is still powder. This is a straight power I mean, they rocking it up, but we didn't know how to.

You didn't know what the fuck it was. Freebasing wasn't popular at that yet, I guess right. Freebasing was. Yeah, freebasing was was. It was popular, but not to me. And had Richer Pride already been freebasing? Okay, the Richard Pride already been getting down. So I had never saw cocaine. I never saw weed at the time. I was a tennis player, That's what I mean. Yeah, yeah, I was a square. So when my partner called me over and showed me the cocaine for the first time I saw

cocaine was on Superfly, some real shot. Yeah. So I was a novice. So you I got beat out my first fifty. When you say that, what do you mean? Okay, he took it, my guy Martin, who was the big home. He took it, rocked it up, and he sampled it. And at that time he got back up a piece of rock that was about the size of a match head. You've probably never seen a match of course, seen the matches before it. Thirty from thirty five. I'm not twelve. We can go to seven eleven to get free matches,

right now? Yeah they still have matches, Yeah, they got to I don't know my cigarette. You can say I need a match book. I am saw, I'm match in thirty forty years. Shit, they're still out there. Okay, Well, anyway, it's about the size of a match head. And he said, well, it rocked up, but now I gotta taste it. And he cut a little piece off of it, and it was just a teeny piece left and he threw it on the pipe and he tasted in and he said, I need another taste. And next thing you know, it's

like a little little teeny weeny piece. He said, Man, I'm gonna just smoke that and I'll pay you Friday. That's fifty bucks worth, right, So now, oh, my boy, fifty bucks, I'm already broke. So I'm really fucked up now. So I'm sitting on the porch again, like damn. I got to call at homie and tell him I ain't got his fifty fifty bucks sent me a decent amount of money. Now, back then it was it was a

nice fuet of money. Yeah, so uh, I guess. About an hour or two later, Martin pulled up again, the one who had smoked all the rock, and he had Big Mouse whitting. It's the first time I ever met Big Mouse. The mouse used to hang out with Tickie Williams and he was one of one of the guys you know, swollen, and he jumped out he had a hundred dollars. He's like, man, we want one hundred dollars worth of that, and I was like, damn, I ain't got it. So I said, let me go call my boy.

So I called Mike. I told Mike everything that happened, Like, look, man, I ain't got your fifty, but I got somebody here with a hundred. We got a hundred. If you want it, you can come get it. I'm gonna get you your fifty whenever I get it. Yeah, And he was like, oh my way. That was my first sale. And I was like, damn, this shit got value. It got value.

That's crazy. At what point in time did you realize that re rocking cocaine was the most profitable business model for you to to really get to get the most out of out of what you were getting from. Well, well, how that kind of came about is is people would come over early in the mornings, you know, seven eight in the morning, before they go to work. You know, they want to get a hit before they go to work. And they'd be like, damn, man, I ain't got no utensils.

Utensils was the stuff that they cooked it up with. And I was like, oh, I got a bottle, and I would let them use my bottle and they cook it up, and I was like, damn, won't I just have it ready rock for him, ready to go? Because it's like and then we start calling it ready rock. But we got that ready rock, we got powdered, we got ready rock. Which one you want? Which one do you want? And so more people started asking for rock than powder, and then pretty pretty soon it just phased

powder all the way out. Hey, we got to start the interview real quick. Man. Shout out to our sponsors at my bookie. Now, if you're into sports like me, and you like to win money, what are we doing? Go to my bookie right now. Man, let's get in on some of this action my bookie. Go sign up, get the double deposit bonus. This is what this means. When you sign up in my bookie right now. All right, whatever money you deposit, they're gonna match it. They're gonna

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code bootleg double your deposit. My my own close family members had their bouts early on in my childhood with crack. But crack is like one of those things that like I feel like when you when you see the things people go through to get it, and they know that it's detrimental to their lifestyle, but they still go through all those things and they still put It's almost like being a crack ad is like a real full time

job just to get high. It's like it's like it's like if you wake up every day and your goal is to get crack. It's like that's like your full time becomes that becomes your goal. Yeah. I saw people quit, you know, before I start selling crack, would quit jobs that we would kill for, right, And it's like, and like I'm quitting, man, I'm gonna come out dan work with y'all. Like, homie, you ain't gonna make it out

here in these streets. Did you ever try it? I tried it for about two weeks and and what I mean you got sick. You got sick. Thank god, because if you really liked it, you would have had I would have I mean, I knowing me, I would have had to strength to quit though. Yeah. And I've had friends that I've helped quit, you know, like was out there and they came back and then started having money. Yeah.

It's crazy because you think of like some of the you know, I guess when you think of being a drug dealer, the moral I guess the moral line that you're walking where it's like, Okay, at the time, you don't understand in twenty or twenty five years from now, how you're going to be necessarily affecting all the Yeah, the crack era, absolutely, Like you don't know that when you're living it because it's it's it's you. You can't see.

There's nobody Coody really knew though, because yeah, no one knew, right, nobody knew about crack at that time. Yeah, it was something new, and I'm sure it started off as people doing it recreationally because I have friends like Brian Samson shout him. I guy Brian who did crack in the eighties. He used to say he used to just freebase before he fucked. He'd be like, oh, yeah, we used to do it in the eighties, but like we didn't really know it was cracked yet. We just called a free basin, right,

you know, and you're you're absolutely right. So like people, I think it started off as some them were and the people who was doing the all have money because you feel you figure it back then when when when when I started a grammar cocaine was worth like three fifty three seventy for a gram, so everybody couldn't afford to free base extremely rich and at the time there was no ready rock, so people had to buy that and then do that shit on their own. Like you said, right,

do you think that you were eat the basin. They used to eat the base when you first started, they was eat the basin. Were you were? You think you were one of the first people who decided to prepackage and have it ready the ready rock aspect. You know. Elie time said I was the first cracked millionaire, you know, and you know it's hard to say. We don't keep stats, you know, we just we'd just be trying to stack

as much money as we can. Do you feel any sort of remorse or guilt, just kind of knowing like your part in the crack epidemic? Well, you know what, People ask me that, and I used to contemplate with how to answer that question, But I know how to answer it now. I did an article with a young lady in Chicago from the Chicago Tribune, and when she headlined her article, she said, no regrets, only lessons. So I learned a lot from being in the cocaine game.

You know, I'm happy with myself right now. You know, I'm happy with my life. I'm happy to with my life turn out, you know, even my prison time. You know, I accept that as being part of, yeah, my journey of my rights to passage and who I am right now. Had I never been involved with the cocaine, I couldn't be who I am today. You know, I wouldn't be able to do the things that I'm going to do

in the future. Were there every little things that happened where you were dealing with your plug that might have like that in retrospect you think back on or you thought back on when you realize that they were indeed, you know, CIA or whatever, were there like little things. We're like, you know what now that now that I know that this, it kind of meant like nothing like

what they're doing on snow on snowfall. Uh. You know, I'm looking at these guys they like walk through locks, doors and walls, and you know they got supersensus, you know, where they could just like figure out and somebody's watching them and like, no, that shit don't really happen in the DoD game. You know, we just like normal motherfuckers.

We make mistakes, you know if you forget ship, but nah, do you remember that like the time you you knew for the first time you had a million dollars, because I feel like that first million has got to be memorable.

I mean, there was times where you were making three million dollars a day, right, the one hundred thousand, My first one hundred thousand was more memory don your first million, yeah them my first million, because you know, the dope game is it's kind of funny because once you make a hundred thousand, it gets really easy to make a hundred thousand. That's a lot of people don't know that.

But to get to an ounce was tough. That was like like pulling teeth out to get to an ounce of cocaine, you know, to save up twenty eight hundred dollars, like, wow, I ain't gonna never get there. And then once I did it, it was like four ounces and ten ounces one hundred ounces, you know, just like kept spending. And that's the same way with money. You know, once you get to a certain level. So if, for instance, when you're working with one hundred thousand, it's easy to profit

thirty forty thousand dollars. Yeah, I mean once you have that one hundred k, you start playing in a different game in terms of the amount of money you can congenerate, can generate one hundred percent because you really really what you do is what I did, you see, like what I found out about myself is that I don't look at myself no more as a cocaine dealer. I was

a cocaine banker. Mmmm. So I would do like banks do, go get money from somebody and then take it and break it down to a bunch of other people and then make a percentage off of each one of those people. And that's how my money was generated. Wow. So yeah, that makes sense. Cocaine banker. I like that. I like that's that's that's pretty wild for people who don't know what area of LA what was your neighborhood? South Central?

But like Steven, then figure out. Okay, so when you're growing up, you're coming up in the late seventies, early eighties, right sixties. I was there when to watch riots happen. That's crazy. Yeah, I saw the watch es. Yeah, I was there. I saw the burn, baby burn, you know, the army tanks rolling down the street, the army man. I mean, you're there for the beginning of what we you know is you know, we live in LA So we're fully at least you know, obviously both of us.

But a lot of people culturally think of LA. They think of the two biggest gangs in the world of the Bloods and Crips in terms of just culturally right, and like, I feel like your come up. You were actually kind of there before Bloods and Crips were world famous. You were probably running a lot of those blocks before it became like a thing. Well, no, they was there before I started selling coca, so they were there already.

I'm just I'm just curious like that that I remember when the Crips and Bloods played football against each other, Wow, before they were enemies. I remember the first person that got killed at the park. You know, we had all all my little crew. We had all rode our bikes to the beach and we sneak, you know, sneak and ride our bikes to the beach. School. Who wasn't only about ten years old, But back then, you know, you could, you could run around La and didn't have to be,

you know, worried about nothing happened to you. I would let my ten year old kids run the streets now in LA, but of course back then we did it. You know, about ten of us, fifteen of us, we get on our bikes and we just ride to the beach. And we were coming back from the beach this night, and it was just before don you know, it was still the sun was still up a little bit, and when we got to the park, we see the park taped off and cops everywhere, and it was like, what happened?

And then we found out that one of the crips killed the blood. It was that's so wild over a football game. Over a football game. One of them tooth got knocked out, and from there it was just it was started fight escalator and then the weather one went to the car and got his gun. That's so crazy, what because it would have been easy for you to get sucked into that life, right. I wanted to be a crypt, you wanted to be a cryp? Yeah? What was it? That was about twelve. I was gonna say

what was it? Because because you know, you're obviously running your enterprise later on, was it easy to navigate kind of being independent? If that makes sense? Well, you know I was. I was a kid and I was only twelve years old, So I just mean in terms of when you started to finally kind of get into the streets, well, when I came back to the streets though, when I quit playing tennis, I was a grown man. But I mean, did you still have to kind of deal with some

of those politics. Yeah, but they was my homeboys, Okay, I went to school with them. It's like my neighborhood is like the Crips is right here on figure or and then you go a block or too old, it's the Bloods, right, so it's only like it ain't even a quarter mile between, you know, the two sets. You know, like the two sets kind of like mingle into each

other on certain areas. You know, like you could be walking down the street and you see the Bloods walking on that street, and then you know, you see the Crips just just a little off, so they were they were close out of each other. Yeah, that's that's crazy because like I just feel like that was befocause now we think of like, I mean, there's blood sets and cripsets all over the world, and just like, I guess that's amazing. I never would have thought that at one time. Yeah,

it's wild. It's crazy. And then even when we think of just gangs in general, we just think of crypts. I mean in the United States, like people think of Crypts and Bloods as like the two biggest gangs. Like obviously there's motorcycle gangs, there's Hell's Angels and all that. But oh, for sure, it's a wild it's a wild

thing to think that you were there. Well, the Christ and the Bloods get the most notoriety probably you know, out of it's something about you know, being black in America where they like to promote negative stuff about us. That's true. And then also just the you know it even it even baffles me when when when I went to jail, you know, I made every news channel in the country, night Line, Dayline, twenty twenty sixty minutes. Well, I've been out. I spoke at Stanford University, Yale, not Yale.

That's not on Dateline, that's not on twenty twenty. Yeah, they're not. They haven't said nothing about it, of course not. Yeah, I mean it's the same way that and and for me, unlike, you got a guy that was illiterate, Now he's getting paid to talk at Stanford University, you see law school UCLA. I mean, if that ain't some amazing shit, what is what is for a guy who couldn't really couldn't write, now the universities of paying him to go and talk

to the smartest students, I'm like, what the fuck? It's just this society. Man. It's like when we think of like when you turn on the news, like they're not talking about the good shit going on. They're only talking about the nots of stuff that really like like, like even I even broke down to John Singleton situation, right because I knew John fucked with me, right, he fucked

with me for real. You know, I know when motherfucker's faking, of course, So me and him sit down, we chopping there with the aid together, so I know that he liked me. Yeah, So I was thinking a couple of weeks ago, like when I started doing this show after the Snow with Dave, you know, I started really like

just opening my mind up and like really thinking. So I was like, damn, I bet John Singleton went to FX and say, man, I got Rick Ross and I got this show, and they probably were like, we'll take the show. We don't want rig Ross. That's interesting. I wouldn't doubt it. I mean, from all accounts I've heard, like John was a pretty stand up dude. I don't know, but I don't think he should have did the deal though. He should have said you ain't taking Rick Ross. You

can't have the show I don't. I mean, yeah, I mean, I don't disagree. I mean, I don't disagree. I mean, and I also think it's obvious that it was loosely based around your life, Like it's odd you could go to this page. If you go to John Singleton's Instagram page, you got me and him hugging taking a picture with my book. He bought one of my first books and he said Rick Ross's great story Snowfall coming soon. I didn't know it until somebody brought it to my attention.

M that's fucking crazy. Yeah, no, that's that's unfortunate. When someone has the amount of money that you have, you start to learn you're kind of forced to learn some financial literacy, right, because that's a lot of fucking money.

Your money will teach you. What are some of the lessons that having that much wealth accumulated at such a young age that you learned that you would try to spread to other people, because because financial literacy is one of those things that you know, unfortunately isn't taught in schools enough. We all learned that your money will work harder than you. You know, a lot of people try to work to make money, but you should let money work for you. That's some real shit. And and basically

I figured that out. And once I did, that's when I would go buy a million dollars worth of cocaine and then I would pass it out to different people and then the next day they would all bring me my money back. Because you ain't standing on the corner, SONI your fucking self exactly. Mm hmm. What're that's your

money working for you? Yeah? I mean, and I think that in terms of just what the wealth these people, we know that's what they do, oh absolutely, whether they have stocks that go up and down, whether they I mean, shit as simple as a vending machine. You have a vending machine. The vending machine, you're not there. The vending machine is making your money working. It's working for you. Yeah. If you go out and buy bulldozer, that's your money working,

piece of property, rent it out there, it is. Was there any assets you were able to keep after you got arrested or did they take everything? I had a few. I had a few pieces of property. You know, I shown the theater or on Crenshawn Adams. I was gonna build a West Coast Apollo over there, and uh what else I had? I had a few pieces of property, you know. Uh, I saw my motel before they before they indict. I mean, once I knew that I was indicted, I started trying to sell my assets because I knew

that it was come to take. Yeah, they was gonna try to take the big ones. My lawyer was like, get rid of everything that you think they knew about it. You knew it was coming. Oh well, what happened is is even though my indictment was a secret indictment, one of my cousins killed hisself and I go to the scene because I couldn't believe he had did it. So I go over there where he was at and then one of the cops had had had beat me. And then somebody was like, man, that cop just mentioned your

name to the other cop. And I was like, I ain't tripping. I'm good. You know, I hadn't even been selling dough for a year and a half at that time. And the cop came over and he was like, uh you Rick Ross, And I was like, nah, and I had fake I D so let me see I D So I pulled out my bunk idea and I hand it to him and he was looking at his partner his part, like that's him. And when he said that, dude, they turned around, want to cuff me. I took off runting.

So I knew from that day that I was wanting something was coming because they were going they were trying to throw you in some they sent the cuffy. So you started to get your assets in order or get your lawyer. I called a lawyer the next day, like man, they was, they was going to arrest me out here. Yeah, you must have had a fire ass lawyer in the eighties. I did. I did. They didn't like him either, though. Is he still Is he still practicing law? I don't know.

He done got old. He about seventy some years old. Now, I always think you ever watched Breaking Bad? I never watched it. He's got this the guy he's a big meth dealer and he's got this like go to lawyer, saw goodman. It's like a crazy gap. But I can imagine being your lawyer in the eighties had to be a stressful and also profitable gig to take. Yeah, he made a lot of money, Betty, I bet he did. I bet he didn't kept us out of jail, though, I bet he did. That was that was the most

important thing is keep my guys out of jail. That had to be nice to have somebody like that in your corner to kind of guide you through the legalities of like, hey, oh yeah, if you're gonna put if you're gonna take your money and put it here, do it this way. Really, one of the best things he ever told me was I go to him and I was like, man, these cops planning dope, planning dope. Yeah, they was planning dope on us. Yeah, because they couldn't catch it. They couldn't figure out how to catch us

with dope. You know, we we we I came up with a theory was that we don't keep dope in the house. We brain in the house, weir it up. As soon as we wear up, we throw it in the trunk of a car, put the car down the street in front of somebody else's house. So they was

never going to catch us with dope. Let's they called us like right during that time, that specific instance, and then we started weighing it up at three in the morning, four in the morning, you know, like odd hours of the of the day when when most people would be sleep, so people wouldn't see us going in houses or something like that, because you know, people would see me sometime and recognize me and be like, oh, that's Red Cross.

So we just start doing it when most people would be sleep, so nobody wouldn't really recognize us, so the cops couldn't catch us with dope. And back then it wasn't no conspiracy, you know, like, well conspiracy, somebody got to get caught with some dope with a conspiracy, or somebody got to come in and say that you had some dope. But anyway, they started playing the drugs on us.

They started raising the house and would literally take dope out of their pocket and plant it in the house, or take bags of dope out of their trunk of their car. And so how did your lawyer tell you to navigate through that? Well, when I told him about it, he didn't believe it. You know California. Yeah, no, no, that's a crazy thing. Ain't nobody doing those shit like that in California. So he said, I, if I knew some cops was was crooked like that there, I would

hire a private investigator to investigate the cops. That's what I did. So you would hire a private investigator. Now this would be pre then planning drugs or after they had already been planning drugs. They're planning drugs on my people already, they hadn't planning drugs on me. And you knew who these cops were. Yeah, so you would say it's the Freeway Task Force. They was named after me. So you would hire a private investigator to investigate those cops. Yeah,

and just get get shipped on them. Yeah, that's great. What was the craziest thing that your PI dug up on a cop? This one guy was in the bed with his girl and he had a fish tank right next to his bed. Well, the pumps had a shortage in it, so it was electrocuting. They stuck the guy onto the wire and electrocutity. So the cops did that to someone. Yeah, and your PI witnessed this. He didn't witness it, but the defendants or the witnesses told him

that that's what happened to him. Another one was up my partner. We used to have big safes, probably like the side of this table in our apartments, and they wanted him to open the safe and he wouldn't open it, so they took a trash bag and put over his head. Fuck, torture and shit, try to suffocate. They got indicted for that, for putting the trash bag over his head, smothering me. Wow. So it was almost like against their best interest to fuck with you in that way because you had a

fucking guy who was gonna, I guess, overturn all that ship. Well, eventually we we got it all overturned. And when when I turned my investigation in one hundred and fifty people got out of prison. When you when you ended up going in or when you ended up and died in me, they eventually inded in me. Okay, So when they in died in me, you had all this ship that your PI had accumulated, Like, oh, you're gonna go to trial with these guys. This is this is what we got

on them. This is your witnesses. Right, let me show your terrible witnesses. Let me show you who your witnesses is. Wow, that's crazy. That's how that's how I beat my first case. Shout out to your PI. Huh. I mean that's your lawyer and your p I in the eighties. God bless him that had top of the line got Frenchy. He probably did now too. His name is Frenchy French. He

was an ex cop. I mean, so he knew, Yeah, he knew, he knew the ropes, he knew the rope But those are the guys that you get for investigators, you know, if you're doing investigation on cops, you know you want somebody who's who's been there and done that. That's some really when you're coming up in LA in the eighties, the early uh stages of gangster wrap, Ice Tea,

I think of iced Tea. I think of guys like that, like, uh, how much was like hip hop and guys like like Ice and and you know, obviously n w A was a little bit later, we were moving Tiny T master Spade, King King T master Spade. Yeah. I was gonna say, like, it's it's kind of like you you you know, hip hop and the crack era kind of run synonymous with each other in a lot away definitely, you know, Ice did the documentary Planet Rock right how hip hop stole

from the Dope Game. But I was gonna I guess, did you also kind of recognize that this hip hop thing was was becoming like a real thing that I did not because some people, because back then a lot of people thought it was a fad. It was like it wasn't real music, or it was it wasn't gonna last long. That's what Oldest and Dick, Griffy and them told me that it was gonna be like disco because disco was there, and then it wasn't exactly. And that's

why I missed hip hop. If it wouldn't have been for that, If that would have told me that I would, I would have been to king of hip hop without question. Nobody. I remember Russell Simmons was running bud La broke Wow. I remember that, and you had the money to really you could have been to death row out of l A. Yeah, that's crazy. I mean shit, man, But it ain't too late. It ain't too late. No, No, I still got to get my money out of out of the music industry. See what I do is I need a baker and

get your money back. No, No, I'm gonna get it out of I'm gonna get it out of hip hop. Hip hop gonna pay me. I like it. I mean shit. Has did you end up winning the Rick Ross lawsuit? No? I lost that. You did lose it. What was the reason that you lost it? Because it seemed like it was a pretty well if if if somebody does some to you, you get two years. It's like a statue

of limitation. Limitation. So you were past that. I should have found before I got five days before I got out of prison, I should have folded my lawsuit, but the judge wasn't gonna just gonna find a way to that them out. Did you and the rapper Rick Ross ever have any talk or was it kind of spoke on the phone before you got Okay, Yeah, it's it's it's you know when he was You're probably like, yo, you're out to running around with my name. Huh. It

was crazy. I went when one of the youngsters, you know, my my little youngsters that I had in jail, you know, the studied under me. When I ran in one day with a magazine boom and he showed me XX Hey, man, look at this dude. He stole your name. I was like, oh, so I go get on the phone. I started calling everybody, Ay, man, you know this dude, X, you know this dude. Yeah, so finally you got to hit one of my guys in New York. He's like, man, he gonna be in

my office Monday. I was like oh yeah, He's like, yeah, call it nine o'clock. So when I called, he's just handing the phone. He didn't even know who it was. Yo, stop in the interview. Got to tell you about our good folks at odd Socks. Man. Listen. Go to odd socksoficial dot com. Use the promo code twenty percent off. Save twenty percent off some of the craziest socks. You know. They got the Ninja turtle joints. Shout out to kool Aid, you know what I'm saying, Shout out a SpongeBob. Plus,

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y'all be wearing on your ass. Throw all the methicas in the trash, all that PSD shit, All that shit is all listen, man, put them odd socks on your ass cheeks and thank me later. At your peak liquidity wise, what is the most amount of money you had at one time? I don't know, three and a half million, three point two million, something like that. There, you didn't really matter, See, I don't really care about how much money I had. I wanted to know how much money

I could spend every day. You were spending a lot, you know. If I could make two hundred and three hundred thousand every day, I was good. How much were you spending a month at your at your peak when you're on dope? No, I'm just just I'm just on. Were you like a flashy guy? Nah? Because that's you probably would have got caught a lot earlier had Yeah. Yeah, Now I bought mostly houses, uh business a business freak, you know, Like I'll be riding down the street and

I see a house. Oh, look at that abandoned house right there. Get the Just call my girls, Hey, I want to get this house. Go get it. When you get incarcerated, obviously, before that happens, you have I'm sure you had a close uh circle of people who helped you with your affairs, who helped you with what you were doing. What happens to them when you go to jail disappear when the money runs out, everybody runs out. No more girls. That's crazy, gets lonely. Yield is a

lonely place. How was gonna say, you had to trust somebody enough to like handle certain shit once you like, if you know what, once you get a life sentence, it's theirs. It's no longer yours, don't belong to you anymore. How much do you need it for? I was gonna say, how much cash do you think what's taken from you by people? You know once you got that sentence, because I'm sure you had cash around who knows? Man? I mean, I've lost so much money in my lifetime, you know,

people running off and beat me out of money. It's I mean, the numbers, it would be crazy. It'd be crazy to think about it if we could put it together. What I appreciate about what you've been doing since you got out is just like the positive influence you've been Like you were talking earlier, you know, I feel like your story is an inspiring one because a lot of people might be in that position that you're in and give up or I ain't gave up. I'm going full

steamer head. Well that's what I mean. You got out and just you just picked right back up. Well, no, I picked up in jail. I taught myself how to read when I was in jail. I mean, that's a that's how I got out. I got myself out of prison. Why did they Why did they let you out early? Because I told him that they had they charged me on a three strike law, and I told him I wasn't a three striker. And then I showed him I wasn't a three striker, and then he had to get

out and they had to let me out. It's a beautiful I'll go against their books. And one thing about them, they don't like going against their books. Once they write it on that paper, it's hard for them to go against those. So when I was in prison, I went hard man, I didn't uh. I read over three hundred books while I was gone. What's the most important book you've ever read? I would say the three most important? Give me the three Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon,

ill richest man in Babylon. But George Class Great Book and As a Man Think by James Allen, and those books allowed me to go back over my life in the dope game and break it down and to see how I could use those same skills to do the things that I'm doing right now. Rich's made in Babylon. They made us read it in high school. What well you went to high school the Phoenix, Arizona. They should be that books. I believe that books should be in every school in this economics class, right, but it was

it was for people who don't know. They should go check it out. It's really extremely basic principles of financial literacy, but not told in that specific way. I guess if that makes sense. Yeah, like how you should spend money, how you should save money, like you know, all my guys. I asked all my guys to read it, you know, my boxers. And it's not a long book. No, it's a short book. It's a very short, easy read. Everyone

should go check short book. So the rappers that I work with, boxers that I work with, anybody that want to work with me, my assistants, I asked them, want to read those books now that you're you know, you got the books been out for five years. We talked about that. You're working with another book I've been out about a year. What, like, give us the grand scheme of everything you have going on. Now you know the books,

the movie is budgeted. Yeah, so let's let's talk about the movie first, because your movie's gotta be This can't just be a fucking straight to straight to TV type. Oh no, this this, this is theater. This has to be. Uh. When we think about how big Snowfall is, and I know that Snowfall, I mean officially isn't about you, but the movie's got everybody think it is. The movie's gotta be fucking crazy, absolutely, like Michael B. Jordan or somebody crazy. You gotta play you. I don't know. I like I

like that. I like that kid, childish Gambino. Childish Gambino would be crazy. Donald Glover playing it would be crazed. He would kill it. I don't disagree. That's what I was gonna ask you, Like, you're the hardest guy in the world to get it. I've been looking for that guy for three years. Yeah, I mean he is a very eclectic human. Yes, and nobody knows he show Atlanta is amazing. If I don't seen it, it's good. I

haven't saw it. But I just I just like his demeanor, you know, I think that he could uh, that he could put it off. I just don't want to see your your movie ending up like the Gotti movie that John Travolta started recently, because that was straight to Amazon and it was terrible. No, I don't want to go straight down. Your story is so crazy. It's got to be bankrolled. It's got to be. It's got to just be a nice budget for a black movie. It's got to be a moment, man, it's got to be a moment.

I'll tell you that we got O reginal heading directly. Noe. You guys haven't cast it yet. No, we haven't cast it yet. Are you guys gonna make the movie and then shop it around or do you guys already have distribution? My friends have distribution already. Okay, yeah, they gotta put deal. So we were pretty we're pretty tight. You know. I'm i'm i'm, I'm, I'm. I'm pretty dope in the movie

scene too, Like a lot of people don't know. You know, I should scream movie scripts when I was in jail so they could let you, like, you could tell them this is bullshit, this is and how it would go down. That's what I used to do. I just have stacked some movie scripts and what's the movies that they had you look through that we might know while you were locked up. One ah, man, I don't remember, man, I know.

It was one about these people who were they were still in kidney selling kidneys, oh ship, and they both had boxes. This was this was a crazy movie. They both had boxes containers. One had a kidney and one had a bag of dope, and they got mixed up. You know. They went to the same restaurant to meet somebody, and the guy with the kidney gave the guy that was trying to buy the dope the kidney, and the guy with the kidney he gave the a dope to

the guy who needs a kidney. So now you know, the guy with the kidney he sweating because he about to die, right, and the guy with the dope. It was it was, it was crazy. That was one of the crazy this ones ever And they made the movie about that too. It it made it too. So the movie's coming. You're obviously speaking at a bunch of different places, which is I think, yep, I'm doing that the weed shit. Yeah, matter of fact, I just just come for my working

on my gross spot yesterday. I've been working. I'm building a forty thousand square foot gross spot right now. That's got to be so ironic and weird to be like, I just got to I mean, obviously it's cocaine and weed, it's two separate things. But I mean weeding in your day for me to have a license, you know, yeah, and you're like out here like getting selling drugs legally now yeah, yeah, it's a beautiful thing. And I want a dispensary. So I got a dispensary coming soon. You know.

The music I'm working with Don Kennedy. Now, Don's a great guy man friend. Last week I had lunch with James fonderroy matter of fact, two days in one week. You know. Nice, I'm with James fonder Royd for two days in one week. So that was like, damn, who get to do that? You know what I mean? And of course private restaurant, you know, private restaurants, the tape your phone up. You know, you can't take pictures when

you go into the restaurant. So, you know, I just I just found out how to get myself in places that most people can't get in. You know and right now I got the champ with me. You know, he flew out in from Detroit. Come on, man, you want to introduce you to him, you have to jump over the cord. It's one of my young with my young guys and my adviys and them. He's a fighter and a rapper, fighter and a rapper artist. He take the mic. Plug your ship man whatever. Man is that Dulah Kitar

out of Detroit, Michigan. You know, fu to l A tapping with big We're right here with blueleg Kid going crazy. Shout out to Detroit. I gotta go out to Detroit soon. I'm supposed to go out there shoot some shit, baby face right oh yeah, it comes to the d east side. Were good. Troy's going crazy right now. Oh yeah. The whole culture. We we we really like. I wouldn't say the next day Atlanta because we really put Atlanta off. I mean, I can't go there with you. But you know,

right now, the Troit got it. We we we we were right now out uh babyface, Ray Peasy forty two, Doug Perrol Giovanni, the whole the whole city going crazy where everybody's yet. Detroit's going crazy and we all it's like it's like the streets coming out to the industry now, like all them, all the rappers, you just now they like street rappers, they're not in industry, so like they kind of them. I'm just kidding, kidding, Like we got Yachty coming to this city. Now. For sure, yacht did

a whole exactly the whole Detroit theme. No, no, he did. He wasn't an album. He did a Michigan themed album a bunch of Detroit artists. Yeah, Michigan boy boat. It was cool. So you know, we are coming up. Don't make a lot of sense because what we have been saying in jail is that the music business followed the dope game game with the music scene started to flourish.

And and when meeting him went to to man, you know they helped when they helped that thing start to to jail was you need you know, you need some of the some of the trimans to go with, you know, to go You ever communicate with someone like big meach Yeah, me start writing me when he first fell Wow, when

he day hooked us up. She wanted me to advise him on how to do his case and and uh when when when they told me, when he told me they offered him to thirty years, you know, I told him that it was a good idea to take it. I say, thirty years beat a life sentence. You know, I knew guys, and that's because I had new guys who had the opportunity to take thirty and didn't and got the life and had did thirty years. So so you can do thirty, but you couldn't do life right.

So sometimes, you know, you might look at it like, oh, that's a lot of time. But at the end of the day, you got a date, You got a date, and thirty might be already already. He's probably only like three years to the house now that it's crazy, you know, he done did that shit. So you just think that he could have you know, he could have went and got the Life CENTERCE and we'd be like, oh, he ain't got no date. Did fifty cent ever? Trying to reach out to you the dude, Yeah, fifty call me today.

I got out of jail because I feel like he's been doing such a good job of telling the BMF story with his show, you know, but we wasn't able to put nothing together. You know, he might be able to do a much more accurate version of what Snowfall is. But like having you directly involved, maybe I can do my own movie. This is true. I know enough about I read enough books on producing movies, that's true. I

read about four or five books on producing movies. When I go talk to him, you know, I met when I got out, I met with ri Manuel, I met with Jeff Bird, Spencer Bloomer, everybody, Michael Linton, the four biggest guys in Hollywood. You know, going to fifty cent that's like a step down. So so once I meet the top guys and they didn't show me. You know, I didn't think none of those guys was that smart. That's fair. They couldn't even figure out how I got

in their offices, Like how did you get here? That's crazy? I was like, I was invited. So when it comes to work with someone like him and you're helping advise him, like what are the what are some of the things that you're doing for for somebody like your guy right here? Well, Well, what I'm showing him is is that a lot of these guys they're not their own men. You know, they don't make their own decisions. They don't really think for themselves. Uh,

they got other people. Basically, they almost like puppets. You know, when you look at most of these guys, they can't they can't do what they want to do, you know. Like with me, I do whatever I want to do. I go when I want to go. I go to sleep when I want to go to sleep. I eat what I want to eat. Nobody pays my bills. I pay my own bills. So that's the way you gotta be if you want to if you want to have I mean, you gotta If you ain't got no you

ain't got no nuts. Since you can't do that, you know, you gotta torne down to what other people tell you you have to do, you know. And that's what I when I met with those guys in Hollywood that I just named to you. You know, Ory Man, you will tell me that I'm gonna have to be listening to Mark Wahlberg. No, I don't have to listen to Mark Wahlberg. You know, I don't have to listen to nobody, because I already knew that I was gonna get out here

and and and blaze my own trail. You know, I get my mind out the streets twenty dollars at a time. I just stacked them twenties up. You ain't got to give me, you know, one hundred thousand. Well, you know most people, that's the that's the downfall to the music industry is most artists are vulnerable, and they get that. They'd rather take that upfront bag, even though the terms are terrible. Then then take the slow monthly bag or the slow residual and h I like that though. That's

why I self published my book. That's why I told him, no, go to Amazon and gig get it from your me. I respect it, I got it. I got a little artist right now, I'm trying to sign. I got a sixteen year old kid. I ain't gonna mention his name because then you might you might pop pop, someone might steal him from you. Yeah, yeah, you know how they do. So that's what's up, man. And then we're gonna probably go to the studio tonight, you know what I'm saying? And uh, was he hot too? He hot on the mic?

Can he fight? But he could wrap too? Are you getting back into real estate at all? I am, But I'm gonna wait. You know, I got my credit right and you know now where my marijuana grow. You know, I should be making a lot of million, million and a half a month, you know what I'm saying. So something like I get into real estate, then something like and and that's real estate. You know my building, I own the building. There is that real estate. You know

what I'm saying. Did you ever franchise any ship like any like did you ever have like a subway or like a McDonald's back in the day. No, I didn't know how to do that. You know, I was a ghetto boy. You know my mom didn't. My mom the only job she ever had was cleaning offices and cutting grass. So, you know, you in order to do those type of things, you have to have somebody in your life that has already done that. You didn't have that circle of people at Some of my guys just carry guns, you know,

they didn't. They didn't carry books, didn't carry guns. So when you have people who's coming from those lifestyles, then you can't expect anything else from you. And that's why I feel it's so important for me to be successful because there's so many young men, you know, like him, who need somebody like me to show them how far they can go, Like, don't limit yourself to just this. You know, the world is yours. You can do anything

that anybody else in this world can do. And that's how I feel, and that's what I try to teach my guys, is that don't let nobody muffle you down and tell you how far you can grow and how far you can go, because they don't know what you can do facts. You know, I don't know what you can do, you know, so you have to be the one that tells yourself where your limits are and where

you want to stop. Last thing I wanted to ask you about because I feel like what's going on right out with fetanol and all the overdoses and people getting turned out over all these opiates, it's probably like the craziest like surge of like a drug that's kind of like taking over in terms of like national media attention

probably since Crack in the eighties. Right when you see the what's going on with fetanel right now, and like how a lot of these pharmaceutical companies are kind of skating because they're the source of the problem, and you know, really, do you see the parallels and kind of what was going on in the eighties. So what's going on now with fetanyel Well Fitinel cuses customers. You know we're cracked. We didn't kill our customers. I didn't want I didn't

want my customers to die. I wanted them to live because I knew as long as they live, they was going to be bringing me that money. And if you're killing your customers, you know, I almost like the cigarette companies you got to recruit. Yeah. I didn't want to recruit. I just wanted to keep the same people, keep coming, keep on prea customers, we keep repeat. We always think

of people who will sell stuff to get cracked. What's the most random thing someone brought to you in exchange for crack adult adope smoker, not somebody who was trying to sell, But like, what's the craziest thing someone showed up to you with and said, hey, take this, I need this, I need I need I need my fix. And people done offered everything, man for their wives. Someone offered you their wife. Yeah did you did you take it? No? No, that was my homeboy. Your homie offered you his wife

cause to get his fixed. He thought I liked his wife. So it's like, yo, you can fuck I just need some crack. Exactly? What the fuck? That's crazy? What was what's the craziest thing you accepted? How about that? I didn't. I didn't really, I didn't really have to be good. You weren't on that You weren't on that line and

still on the streets in the transition. I was probably on the streets for about two three months, right, you were by the time you would really get in to go, and you would, you didn't even the hand of handsher was was was over my hand in hand was real short. You know, I was able to. I got lucky because when I started my mom, when my mom put me out the house, I moved in with my cousin. My cousin stayed right around the corner from a PCP spot.

So all the guys who sold PCP smoked crack. That's crazy. So every time they would get one hundred dollars, they would come and see me. So mine went from making twenty dollars to five hundreds a day, like really quick. As soon as I find when I met the PCP guys, all the PCP guys, you know, it's like ten to fifteen, I'm out there. So now I'm making one hundred dollars from each one. If they make four hundred dolls a day, they're gonna give me a hundred. That's crazy. Someone offers

you their wife, that's pretty wild. Yeah, I can imagine that. That's yeah, that's wild. Well, listen, man, is there anything going on like this very moment you would like to promote? Yeah, we got a we got a big fight up in Philadelphia on the twenty fifth of this month with my man, but Sean Champ Okay, y'all be checking him out another one of my guys. You're working a lot with fighters. Well, that's my main passion right now, the we do we Well, my passion is to take over boxing. Did you get

any pointers from J Prince? No? Because J Prince had his bouts with you know, obviously managing Floyd Mayweather. Jay say, you know Jay doing this thing. I mean, we're gonna we're gonna probably be more like competitors because well, we're gonna be going for the same guys. You know, pretty soon my guy's gonna beating his guys up and anybody else's guys. You know, we want them belts. We want to be the best guys and not not for the money because we already gonna be rich. You know, we're finish,

We fin to have more money than see them. But we just want we don't want to go in the ring and beat somebody up, you know what I'm saying. Boxing it so that the twenty fifth, it's in Philly, the fighting Philly. Yeah, so be on the lookout. Uh and it'd be it'd be streamed on fight TV. Oh I got fight TV. You got fight TV? Well, yeah, you'll get to see it. I I think I saw a fight. What was one of the it was one of the Paul fights. I think Tyron Woodley was on there.

It was on fight TV, right, one of those were it was the one that wasn't on trailer. It was on fight TV. Because that shit's on. Like anybody anybody that wanted to fight t if they want to know exactly where to get it, they can go to my page fore Ricky Ross dot com or freeware Rick on Instagram for Ricky Ross on Facebook and uh TikTokers freeway Rick and Twitter for Rick what's your what's your what's

your social media? So if anybody want to follow you on my Instagram, pack boy dot pepk Man tap in with your baby. There it is cross all platforms. You feel me. We're here, We're taking over. This year is gonna be a good year for us. There it is. Appreciate you and your time. Man, Thank you answer. You asked me some different stuff. All right, we was off camera. You were talking about I asked you about doing Joe Rogan. You said you were one of the first Joe Rogan interviews.

How many times have you done the Joe Rogan Show? Twice? You say you're like number eighty or something. Yeah, something like that. I was writing that number. I might have been a little earlier than that, maybe even So I go on Joe Rogan Show, right, and uh, I'm fucked up at the time. You know what I'm saying. That just took my mom's house. You see my documentary when they put us out. Yeah, they just put us out the house. And I go do the Joe Rogan Show.

But you know I'm winning it, would you know, like fuck it? When I left prison, I was already like, shit, whatever I gotta do. If I'm homeless, sleeping in the car, I don't care. I'm gonna win, you know, Like I'm just some more billionaire sleeping in the car. So when I go to Joe Rogan show, I was like, man, Joe, I'm fucked up. And he was like, man, you need a T shirt. And I must put my head on the table, like, oh a T shirt. Man, give me some money. I need it. I need I need a boost.

So I need a show man. I'm walking downtown and this young white kid come up to me and he's like, hey, Rick, I hurt you on the Joe Rogan Show. He all geeked and shit like that, and I'm like, oh man. He's like, man, I got an idea for a T shirt. And I was like, oh, another one. No, motherfucker's right. And uh he said, the real Wick Ross is not a rapper. And I say to myself, that's the corniest shit in the world. But I always one thing I

noticed about me is I keep open mind. You know, even though I might feel like a certain way, I had like just say, like, my way is the only way. So I said, all right, let's do it. The dude say I'll print the T shirt, I'll designed and everything. I don't know who this kid either, right, So he designed a T shirt. I come to a shop, we take some pictures, with me wearing the shirt. He give me a hundred shirts. I leave out and I sell all those shirts that same day. Wow. So at this time,

I got Joe's direct number. I can call Joe whenever I get ready. So I called YOUO. I was like, hey, man, you know you told me to do that T shirt. Well I did it. I got a T shirt. He's like, all, I'm gonna set you up to come back on the show. So the next week, I go back on the show and I take Joe on the T shirts because I was doing it with really nice material, you know, the

new T shirts. So I gave Joe the shirt. Joe put the shirt on on camera, and next week, memb, my PayPal hit like eighteen thousand dollars, like bing bing bing. That thing just kept going bing bing bing, ban ban ban. We thought it was broke. Eighteen thousand dollars was in my PayPal. Man. We went and got us apartment and I ain't looked back since. So that that moment kind of helped. At that time, was you needed that money? I mean, I don't know. We was fucked up, man.

I had two babies. I had two brand new babies. You're my girl, and because I wanted to have a son as soon as I got home, because I knew my time was running. You know, I'm an old man now, right as soon as you got home, you got to work. Well, I've never raised a kid, right, and I've always wanted to, you know, like I mean, you know, you could say I raised my younger brothers, but I slipped on them because I would let them, you know, go and do their own thing. But with my babies, they don't get

to do nothing. It's like, of course, you know straight. So Joe Rogan wearing that T shirt kind of Oh my goodness, I can't even say how many shirts that think so because I rescue me on my ass. Well, you did so well. That T shirt did so well that right now, it's like five or six websites this bootlegging that T shirt. That's so crazy. I feel like I've seen it, like at the Swami for sure. The real Rickross is not a raper. You know. I still wear it. Oh it's there there, it is right there.

I still wear that joint. Go to the website and buy one right now. When you someone who's known Joe Rogan as long as you have, and you see the controversy with you know what's going on with him? You know, what are your thoughts on that house. I don't think Joe's a racist, you know. I mean there's a lot of people said, I mean, I used to use the N work. I used to use the N work, but then you know, it's okay, but a little different when you're but but uh, it's it's I don't know, but

I don't. I don't feel like Joe Rogan is racist. You know. I think he's getting a bad rap for for for using the word, and he apologized and he's I don't believe he'll ever use it again. Would you go back on the show, Yeah, I do, Joe tomorrow, I'll be I sell a million books. I said, you're saw a lot more books, a lot more T shirts. Now if I go on Joe show right now, my book probably want to be in the best I mean, my book already. You know, I didn't really need I

don't really need nobody to do what I do. For real. My book has done some numbers, you know, just uh, the way I sell it. They just don't calculate. Of course, I've saw Amazon. Let me say that there and what I'm saying I ain't gonna let Amazon sell more of my books than I sold. I res