On the heels of what many perceive the be the top-selling album of this week, Jay-Z’s American Gangster, Rick Ross spoke to HipHopDX if the new age Def Jam artist would consider a similar project.
Like Freeway, Rick Ross took his rap moniker from ’80s cocaine importer “Freeway” Ricky Ross, who has been incarcerated in Metropolitan Correctional Center in San Diego since March of 1995. The rapper spoke on the likelihood of doing an “inspired by” from the life and times of his namesake. “If we really chopped it up and sat down and discussed it, then maybe,” said the rapper. “He’s a real dude. The fact is, I don’t know him, and he don’t know me, so we’d have to get past that boundary before there could be any entertainment, ’cause this is real to me.” Ross was challenged in 2006 on his lyrical claim that he knew “the real Noriega” in his hit single “Hustlin’,” referring to the Panamanian military general, a known participant in the ’80s drug epidemic. Ross added, “If we can get on the same terms, with some ideas, I’m a hustler, let’s get it.”
Whether or not the project will ever be considered further, Rick Ross is releasing his second official album, Trilla, a play on Michael Jackson’s record-breaking 1983 album Thriller on Slip-N-Slide/Def Jam on December 18.
