Freeway Rick Ross is a reformed drug kingpin who was released from jail in 2009. At the height of his operations in the 1980s, he grossed $2.5 billion per year. He is now heavily involved in promoting literacy, reforming drug laws and rebuilding the communities damaged by crack cocaine. He recently sat down with BPR’s Henry Knight.
Brown Political Review: You built an elaborate drug operation spanning more than 40 cities. Why?
Freeway Rick Ross: I believe that I got into drugs to escape poverty. I was poor and illiterate, and I wanted a piece of the American dream. I wanted more out of life than what I was getting, and I saw drugs as an avenue of getting there.
BPR: How were you initially introduced to the drug scene in Los Angeles?
FRR: I believe what first planted the seed was the movie Super Fly. That is the first time that I ever recognized drugs, and it was the first time that I wanted to be a drug dealer. I didn’t know what a drug dealer was. When the [movie’s main character] snuck all of his money out from the cops, he told them that if they did anything to him, he would kill their whole families and that he was the one with the upper hand and they only thought they had the upper hand. It was the first time in my life that I’d ever seen a black man not only beat white guys, but also beat the cops at the same time. You found a black man who was super sharp and on top of his game. Everything I wanted for myself, I saw in that character.
BPR: You sold crack cocaine to gangs in Los Angeles that spent some of their profits to arm themselves with guns. What is the role of the drug dealer in tracking the impact of their product after it leaves their hands?
FRR: I’m sure that guys who gang bang would take some of that money and buy weapons. But I don’t believe that gang bangers went out and sold drugs to buy guns and fight other gangs. That’s not the case. I believe they sold drugs to get out of poverty. They wanted nice cars, nice clothes, and they wanted to be successful. It was the first time I ever saw Crips and Bloods [two of the largest gangs in LA] cooperating — selling drugs. I would see Crips on Bloods streets and vice versa, all with the intention of earning some money.
BPR: Some have held you personally accountable for the 1980s crack cocaine epidemic in LA. What degree of responsibility do you bear? Do you regret the impact you had on your community, and would you change anything in retrospect?
FRR: Absolutely, I had a significant effect on it. I played a major role in the spread of crack cocaine, the marketing of crack cocaine, the glamorization of crack cocaine. But it’s hard to say that it was totally my fault. My judge in Cincinnati told me, “Mr. Ross, I know that the prosecutor and the media and the DEA all want to blame you for this problem, but I sentenced my first drug dealer the year you were born, so I know you’re not the cause. This is a problem we’ve had since before you were born.” So when he summed it up like that, it gave me a different perspective. I was beating myself down about being a drug dealer. After hearing him put it in those terms, then I understood that the drug problem has been here for hundreds of years.
BPR: Do you think that anybody could have filled that role?
FRR: Anybody. It was a trap that I happened to fall into.
BPR: Do you believe that you were driven into the role of drug kingpin innocently?
FRR: Absolutely. And I believe that the way hip-hop is being used today is almost criminal. For guys to glorify selling drugs the way that they do and tell our young kids that they can go out and sell drugs and parlay it into a record career where they can go sit in the White House is a farce. I believe that our young people are being misled through these avenues and channels. These big record executives from Warner Bros. and Universal are sitting back and getting fat while young black and brown kids go to prison for doing the same thing that they allow these guys to get on the radio and brag about.
BPR: Before you were caught and convicted, do you think you realized the risk inherent in what you were doing, both for yourself and for your customers?
FRR: I didn’t understand that you could go to jail for the rest of your life for selling cocaine. I thought life sentences were for murderers. I didn’t know that you could get a life sentence for supplying something to someone that they asked you for. So I was totally taken aback. I didn’t know that the people that I was introducing to cocaine were going to be punished the way that some of them got punished. That’s one of the reasons why I’m trying to change these laws, so that some of those people that I felt were innocent can get justice…It’s ludicrous not to have some type of mechanism in place whereby non-violent offenders can adjudicate themselves and say, “I passed this level of courses to prove that I’m no longer a threat to society.” That’s the reason they give for locking you up — you’re a threat.
BPR: What did it mean on a day-to-day basis to be a drug kingpin in LA in the ‘80s and ‘90s?
FRR: Power, respect, and the ability to get whatever you want when you want it. It was just fun. It’s absolutely fun to walk around and have people respect you. When Michael Jackson did Thriller, I was in the park one day, and a girl came up to me and said, “Man, the only people they talk about around here are Michael Jackson and you.” It was pretty flattering to be considered in the same light as the king of pop in my area.
BPR: Was being a drug kingpin in any way similar to being a politician?
FRR: You are a mayor. You are a governor. But of a different society. You get to do what you want to do, just like any mayor. You can park your car anywhere. You get the best women. You go to the restaurants and eat free. It was like being a rock star. Like being Magic Johnson or Michael Jordan. It was just pure freedom, everything I was looking for. I desperately wanted freedom.
BPR: Who do you hold responsible for introducing crack cocaine into predominantly black neighborhoods in LA?
FRR: Everybody that was involved bears some of the responsibility…It’s a societal problem. The way they want to fight it is totally wrong. They want to lock up the drug dealer, who could be anybody. If you had a magic wand today, and you had one wish — to wipe out all the drug dealers, take them all off the streets and put them in jail, no trial, everybody who sold drugs would automatically be convicted. You know what’s going to happen? There’s going to be new ones. Why? Because the drug users are going to create them. Drug users made me. They taught me. I didn’t know how to work a scale; I didn’t know what a gram was. Drug users taught me the business. They’re going to teach it to the next guy, because they want a good drug dealer, one they can trust, one that’s not going to rob them, one that’s not going to cheat them out of their money, one that’s not going to sell them fake dope. That was me. They’re going to find another one because they’re going to be looking for that guy every single day until they find him.
BPR: Until America enacts meaningful reform to our drug laws and finds solutions to these societal problems, what would you say to a child in a circumstance similar to yours?
FRR: We can’t really just say it to them. It’s more than lip service. You have to show action. You have to show these people you really care about them, because if you don’t, they think you’re just shitting them like everyone else is. They hear so much bullshit that they don’t know what’s real and what isn’t anymore. When they see the actions, that’s what they respect, and that’s what they’ll listen to and pay attention to. I go out and be with them, walk with them, talk with them and I show them: This is what you have to do, and this is how you get results.
BPR: Is that why your story is so powerful?
FRR: That’s why I’m so powerful.
BPR: Is your goal to use that power not only to leverage legal change, but also to convey to kids in these communities that drug dealing isn’t their only option?
FRR: It’s not an option at all. It’s really a trap under the guise of opportunity. You know how in football, guys throw defenses, and the defense throws you a look, but the look is not really what it is — it’s only made to fool you. It’s the same thing with drugs. The drug is only an illusion to draw you in, so they can trick you and grab you and hold you.
BPR: So you believe that it’s a trap established by the system, which traps you further once you are ensnared by it?
FRR: I don’t know if the system even knows. I don’t know if the politicians see it. It’s unconscious. In order to see it, you have to come down. You need to get out of the White House, leave your Congressional office; you have to go on skid row. And I don’t know if they can stand to be on skid row. I don’t know if they can stand the smell of piss and human excrement on the street. I don’t know if they can do it. I don’t know if they can stand to be around people who don’t talk properly or who don’t have a high school diploma. I don’t know if they can go around kids — like [those at] the school I’m teaching at, where one kid is a Blood and one is a Crip, and they’re all smoking cigarettes and weed and eating candy and drinking soda pop and talking the street talk. I don’t know if they can do that. You can’t see it if you can’t go there. You can’t see it from the White House. You can’t read it in the newspapers. I read an article the other day about Jay-Z. He was on the front cover of Vanity Fair. His story sounds like a newspaper article, not like a guy who was in the streets, who lived out here with these people. These are humans, just like us. But they’re from a different place and life has beaten them down.
BPR: You mentioned that you dropped out of high school and relinquished your dream to pursue a college tennis scholarship because of illiteracy, right?
FRR: If I had been literate, I wouldn’t have sold drugs. I just wanted a job. I would have worked at McDonald’s. And I would have put the same effort into the fries and mopping the floor that I would have put into drugs. I’m the kind of person that always wants to do a job the best I can. I don’t believe in half-doing jobs.
BPR: How do you combat those elitist perceptions of poor communities as lazy and dangerous?
FRR: I try to give people a look at myself, because I am a product of that community. I come from there, from South Central. If they get to know me, then they get to know a little bit about that society, and they can see that it’s safe for them to go there. A lot of people think that anytime you go there you might get robbed. But it’s not like that. Not all of them are robbers or drug dealers; some are. You have to learn the environment to figure out which ones are and which ones are not, and not just lump everyone together and say collectively that all these people are bad.