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Say Hello to Rick Ross

127 points| kitcar | 12 years ago |esquire.com | reply

69 comments

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[+] bonemachine|12 years ago|reply
Meet Gary Webb, the Pulitzer-winning investigative journalist who committed suicide in the wake of the public tar-and-feathering (and financial impoverishment) he endured as his reward for bringing Ross and his exploits to the attention of our great nation:

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Webb
[+] ericd|12 years ago|reply
Wow, it sounds like he got railed by the Reagan administration because he uncovered and reported that the govt. was shielding inner city drug dealers as a way to protect funding for Nicaraguan contras after Congress outlawed direct funding of the contras. That's pretty crazy.
[+] derwiki|12 years ago|reply
Damn, ".. Webb was found dead from two gunshot wounds to the head, which the coroner's office judged a suicide." Two self inflicted shots to the head sounds intense.
[+] aaronbrethorst|12 years ago|reply
To be clear, this is 'Freeway' Ricky Ross, not Rick Ross the rapper (who actually faced a lawsuit from the real Ross over the use of his name).

http://m.rollingstone.com/music/news/judge-drops-rick-ross-n...

[+] colmvp|12 years ago|reply
Not going to lie, I was wondering why something rap related and not named Rap Genius got onto the front page of HN.
[+] ianstallings|12 years ago|reply
Thank God. "I eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the same damn time" fake Rick Ross is of no interest to me. He talks up drug dealing and other idiocy, even though he was never a drug dealer or gangster of any kind, while the real Rick Ross talks about the tragedy, the reality, of being involved in drugs and the streets and how it ruined his life and many others.
[+] nikatwork|12 years ago|reply
> Back in the day, Ross would offer the same deal with crack cocaine — to start you out, he'd give you $100 worth for free and you could sell it for $300.

So - he was a pioneer of the freemium model then.

[+] nrser|12 years ago|reply
no, he's actually extending credit - 'fronting' the product. he would loan someone an amount worth $300 in small end-user sales, for which the person would owe him $100 that they could pay back after selling it.

freemium would be letting people sample small amounts of the stuff and/or for a limited time, then making them pay when they want a larger amount or to keep doing it. my DARE class in elementary school told us that drug dealers would try and hook us like this, but i'm 29 and i'm still waiting for my free samples.

[+] roel_v|12 years ago|reply
No, what he did would today be called 'microfinance', the organizing of which is a favorite pastime of today's royals and philanthropists.
[+] westicle|12 years ago|reply
Pretty fascinating that this guy's life story was essentially stolen by the rapper Rick Ross, who has made a very healthy career out of the persona.

Just an example of lyrics seemingly directly drawn from the life of Freeway Rick Ross:

http://rapgenius.com/Rick-ross-hustlin-lyrics

[+] mschuster91|12 years ago|reply
Stuff like the Webb episode or the sting drug deal set up by the DEA is class A food for conspiracy theoretics all over the world.

Enticing someone to do a drug deal should be illegal.

[+] andyhmltn|12 years ago|reply
Indeed it should. In this case, he was selling a LOT of drugs. But I seem to remember a story (maybe someone can get the link as I can't think of it right now) where they sent an undercover woman cop into a school.

A boy ended up falling in love with her and she persuaded him to get her marijuana. When he did, he was arrested. The kid didn't even smoke it himself, he was just hopelessly in love with her.

[+] unknown|12 years ago|reply

[deleted]

[+] 420365247|12 years ago|reply
In the documentary Cocaine Cowboys, he has a large part where he describes his role with us officials to smuggle coke into the usa.
[+] wavesounds|12 years ago|reply
My friend met this guy and told me all about this a few months ago and I totally thought she just bought some random dudes BS ... but wow was I wrong. This should be a movie.
[+] Theodores|12 years ago|reply
Somehow I learned of the real Rick Ross through the fake Rick Ross - I actually sought out the 'everyday I am hustlin' track on YouTube and, a few clicks later, there I was reading the legend on Wikipedia etc. Hence, sometimes to some people imitation really is the 'sincerest form of flattery'.

I am surprised the real Rick Ross made it onto Hacker News, what next, how the 'CIA invented rap music just to keep the black man down?' - that too is a great 'what if?' urban myth...

[+] mbrutsch|12 years ago|reply
I just want to know where to get the t-shirts.
[+] codyb|12 years ago|reply
My thoughts exactly. I'd definitely send him a 100 for 10 of those. He seems like an awesome person everyone could learn from no matter his part in the crack epidemic. I mean the guy learned to read while behind bars and found the hole in the law he needed to become a free man again on his own. That takes drive. That's impressive.
[+] bluedino|12 years ago|reply
I have a theory that cocaine, and later crack cocaine, were really the downfall of the United States from the late 70's to late 80's. It wasn't Reagonmics, it wasn't the Japanese. All the white collar (and a lot of the blue collar) guys were all doing powder cocaine, and all of the rest of the blue collar workers and the unemployed were all doing crack. Crime got worse, business got worse...
[+] busterarm|12 years ago|reply
Considering that cocaine has been with us since the mid-1800s and saw other periods of high (ab)use, I think it's safe to say this is a false assumption. The decline of cocaine between the '30s and '60s makes the cocaine boom of the 80s seem like more of a problem than it was. In fact, cocaine pretty much built the entire city of Miami; it had a massive positive effect on the economy.

There is _always_ some fad drug ruining lives and society hasn't collapsed yet. For every wasting addict that you see there are dozens->hundreds more functional people using the same stuff.

[+] jacobwcarlson|12 years ago|reply
> I have a theory that cocaine, and later crack cocaine, were really the downfall of the United States from the late 70's to late 80's.

Ok, then do science and report findings. Or find studies that back up your theories.

[+] contingencies|12 years ago|reply
1980s crack epidemic? How about just epidemic. Coke is virtually free in some parts of Los Angeles.
[+] qq66|12 years ago|reply
Fascinating article, but seems better suited for Longreads than Hacker News.
[+] smallegan|12 years ago|reply
He clearly has the entrepreneurial hustle.
[+] iliiilliili|12 years ago|reply
He explains his story in one of the best drug documentaries I've seen: ``How to Make Money by Selling Drugs'' (don't let the title fool you).

I watched it on YouTube, if it's available in your country, please do too.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1276962/