It could be a fun gimmick that Ross can blame on the legal department, and these are the kinds of tricks that make each Maybach album feel so fresh. Picking a key track is difficult as the epic bangers and surprisingly revealing freestyles all stand tall, but "Ghostwriter" sits in the middle of the album because it's the most anticipated, doling out industry gossip like a hot mixtape track but sending all listeners to check their packaging to make sure they picked up the explicit release, as Ross mentions some superstars he used to ghostwrite for, and they all get the bleep. Buy the album Starting at $10.59Īfter banging out a series of glitzy Miami gangsta albums that made him seem like the AC/DC (always the same, always quite good) of rap, Rick Ross gave the formula a rest for Black Market, an album that wanders into ruminations and cooled production at will, but still ends up all slam dunks and three pointers. As goes one to-the-point line on Port of Miami 2’s “Gold Roses,” “I know it seem odd/But money amazin’.Purchase and download this album in a wide variety of formats depending on your needs. Even as he made room to reflect on mortality (2019’s “I Still Pray”), race (2015’s “We Gon Make It”), and politics (2017’s “Santorini Greece”), you always knew where his heart was. Ross worked steadily throughout the 2010s, easing into a more reflective version of his persona-in 2018, he’d ended up on life support after collapsing in his home-without sacrificing any of his outsized grandeur. By 2009, he’d started the Maybach Music Group, following the rapper-to-boardroom path paved by artists like JAY-Z and Birdman by 2010’s Teflon Don, his skills as had caught up to his vision. In 2008, his brief past as a corrections officer-18 months, starting at age 19-surfaced, loading new coals on the ever-ongoing conversation about biography and authenticity in rap. But it’s good TV nevertheless.īorn William Roberts in 1976, Ross started rapping in his early twenties, with “Hustlin’”-then self-released-sparking a bidding war that landed him on Def Jam. “Am I really just a narcissist/’Cause I wake up to a bowl of lobster bisque?” he asked on 2011’s “I Love My Bi***es.” Maybe. Even as he toned down the supervillainy, Ross remained larger than life, luxury incarnate. Few artists were as perceptive in capturing the genre’s turn toward new-money excess, the move from the streets-in Ross’ case, Carol City, Florida-to the exurbs, to cars that outprice helicopters and houses the size of airplane terminals. When Rick Ross’ “Hustlin’” came out in early 2006, it almost seemed like a joke: How could you make something so gonzo and still keep a straight face? This wasn’t rap as lyricism or verbal documentary, it was rap as pro wrestling, summer blockbuster.
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