On April 22, 2009 John Carmanica's article on Miami rap artist Rick Ross entitled "Beyond Authenticity: A Rapper Restages " was featured in the New York Times. The article detailed the extent of the 50 Cent and Rick Ross feud which painted a very grotesque picture of the measures taken by G-Unit Records founder and artist 50 Cent to undeniably go out of his way to publicly diss and humiliate Rick Ross by any means necessary. The article also gave Rick Ross' new album "Deeper Than Rap" a good review for lyrical content, style and production work. When Rick Ross' Deeper Than Rap officially dropped, it made the #1 spot on the Billboard Charts which led to a quick question and answer segment on MTV where 50 Cent was confronted about the success of Rick Ross' new album sales and chart ratings.The feud between 50 Cent and Rick Ross began when information surfaced about Ross being a former Miami-Dade County Correctional Officer and not a hardened criminal or drug dealer. 50 and his camp has even dubbed rap artist Rick Ross as "Officer Ricky". I'm pretty much getting sick and tired of people glorifying the shiesty things in life that are destroying us as a people, family and community instead of building us up. Like I said on the air, Rick Ross owned up to not having had lived the life of a dope boy and actually being a responsible African-American man with a j-o-b that paid his bills and put food in his kids mouths and clothes on their backs before he entered the rap game.
Music is a form of artistic expressionism, entertainment and even healing or support for some. I could care less that Rick Ross was a correctional officer and never experienced the life of a dope boy. In fact, I would love to buy him a bag of chocolate chip cookies and congratulate him for not taking the road easily traveled by so many of our young men who grow up in impoverished inner-city communities surrounded by crime and people always trying to make a quick come up.
I think this extremely immature feud between two grown, multi-talented, intelligent, successful and Blessed African-American secular rap artists needs to be squashed asap and that they both need to be more concerned about how to continue staying Blessed instead of painting the wrong picture to our young people who think its cool to be a thug, dope boy or hustler. If they focus their energies and abilities to attract this type of media hype and publicity for negative drama imagine what they could do if they put their brains together and did something that could make a positive and long lasting impact on the lives of others, especially the youth and adults who can relate to their lyrical messages and find escape, strength or motivation in the words of their songs.
