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Get the lowdown on Ross' hottest mixtape cuts, plus the inside track on his collaborations with Snoop Dogg and Lil Wayne.
Rick Ross is perched high above Miami's Biscayne Bay, in the kitchen of a two-bedroom condo owned by his management company, Poe Boy Entertainment. His six-foot, 300-pound frame is draped in a black T-shirt that shows off the tattoos running down his arms: images of AK-47s, plus ''Murder 4 Life,'' and ''33055,'' the zip code of the Miami ghetto he grew up in. For a moment, Ross, 28 (real name: William Roberts), stares stoically at a plate of ''kush cookies,'' pot brownies made by a California weed dealer. Then the video for ''Hustlin','' Ross' current hit, flashes on BET. Ross perks up, cracks a smile and rhymes along.
''Hustlin'," which is about to come out in a remixed version with verses from Jay-Z and Young Jeezy, is a hypnotic mix of thick organ, brassy synths and trunk-rattling bass, topped with a hooky, slo-mo refrain (''Every day, I'm hustlin' '') and Ross' syllable-stretching drawls about making money on the streets. ''Hustlin' '' became a local hit before spreading nationwide. The song sparked a bidding war, with label execs from Murder Inc. president Irv Gotti to P. Diddy scrambling to sign Ross. ''Ross performed at my birthday party last November,'' recalls DJ Khaled, Ross' Miami buddy and one of the city's top producers. ''Diddy was there. When Ross performed, Diddy's eyes got big. He looked at Ross like, 'Damn, he's gonna be a big boy in the rap game.' ''
Def Jam president Jay-Z eventually beat out all bidders, inking Ross to a multimillion-dollar deal. Def Jam will release Ross' debut, <<I>Port of Miami, in July. If all the collaborations Ross has in the works come through, the album will feature big-name MCs like Lil Wayne, Young Jeezy, David Banner, Nas and Jay-Z, plus R&B crooner Ne-Yo and beats from Just Blaze, Kanye West and several Miami producers -- including Cool and Dre, DJ Khaled and the Runners, who produced ''Hustlin'.''
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Port of Miami is a vibrant portrait of getting by and living high in the cocaine-rich ''M-I-Yay-O.'' Amid grimy, slow-rolling beats, Ross comes on like a Southern 50 Cent, mixing up mesmerizing, laid-back flows, gangsta threats and melodic choruses while rhyming with cinematic detail about moving coke by the case, flashing $100,000 bracelets and toting ''mo' guns than The Matrix.'' ''I'm bridging the gap between the South and the East Coast,'' Ross says. ''The sound is real Dirty South. But I'm spittin' hard, to where the East Coast appreciates it.''
Rolling through downtown Miami in a BMW 550 (after leaving his cream-colored Rolls-Royce Phantom back at the condo), Ross reaches into the car's armrest compartment and shows off a reminder of his criminal past: an Israeli-made .50 Desert Eagle that cost $2,000 and must weigh five pounds. Growing up in Carol City, a suburb of tiny, rundown houses where crack was prevalent, Ross started dealing weed in high school, then began selling cocaine, crack and heroin.
Ross won't say how big a player he was in Miami's powder trade, but he became well-off at various times during his twenties: He bought his first house at age twenty-one and owned the Phantom plus an S-5 Mercedes, a Chevy Cheetah and a 1972 Caprice Classic before the Def Jam deal. Some of the money came from business investments: Poe Boy Entertainment, condos he bought and rented out, a lawn-care service he started, plus a company that paints advertisements on cars. But Ross' street dealings gave him plenty of fodder for his rhymes. ''I witnessed murders. Thank God I wasn't involved. But I knew they was gonna happen," says Ross. ''I've witnessed a robbery or two. But I don't want to incriminate myself. I don't want to make the prosecutors happy."
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Ross began rhyming in the mid-Nineties, and around that time he formed the Carol City Cartel, a five-man rap collective that is currently planning a debut album. Taking his name from ''Freeway Rick'' Ross, a Los Angeles drug kingpin, he earned a reputation around Miami as an MC to watch, thanks to club performances and dozens of freestyle-laden mix tapes.
About five years ago, Ross signed to Trick Daddy's Miami-based Slip-N-Slide Records. Though Ross never recorded his own album for the label, he appeared on various Slip-N-Slide releases and toured with Trick Daddy. The increased notoriety helped Ross become, in his words, ''the number-one ghostwriter in the South.'' Ross won't specify whom he wrote raps for but says that his clientele included platinum-selling MCs.
Back in the BMW, Ross swings through Carol City to visit Trick Daddy's home studio, then stops for a midday drink at Tootsies Cabaret, a massive strip club that used to be a discount outlet. Sitting in Tootsies' velvet-roped VIP section, Ross is relaxed despite his hectic schedule: Besides finishing Port of Miami, he's been in negotiations with P. Diddy to replace Young Jeezy in the Bad Boy group Boyz N Da Hood (Bad Boy did not confirm this at press time), and he's been recording a slew of guest spots: on the remix of Yung Joc's ''It's Goin' Down"; ''On Some Real Shit," the first single from Daz's new album; and the remix of LeToya's R&B hit ''Torn." He'll also be featured on an as-yet-untitled Timbaland-produced cut from Snoop Dogg's new disc, and on new CDs by Too $hort and by Lil Wayne and Baby. But for the moment, he's content to revel in his big-time prospects. "Port of Miami", he says, leaning back. ''It's gonna be a classic.''