Former drug lord Ricky Donnell Ross, widely known as Freeway Ricky Ross, has claimed that rapper Rick Ross often “disappears” whenever there’s a chance they might encounter each other. Freeway, who was sentenced to life in prison in the ’90s for running a vast drug empire but was released in 2009 after being resentenced, discussed this during an interview on The Joe Rogan Experience.
“Have you ever seen anybody confront Rick Ross about you?” Rogan asked Freeway at the 1:21:00-mark of the podcast. “Not in person, no,” Freeway replied. “Anytime I’m around, he disappears.”
Rogan expressed surprise that more people haven’t confronted Rick Ross about using Freeway’s name, especially now that Freeway is a free man. Freeway pointed out the rapper’s ability to avoid such confrontations due to his wealth and fame. “These guys, they kind of… Like we talked about, when you got some money, they don’t care if you beating women or making them lick tampons, you know everybody fucks with you, right?” Freeway said. “He was on top of the world at one time.”
Rogan noted that Rick Ross had briefly worked as a corrections officer before his rap career took off. Freeway commented that people seemed to forget about Rick Ross’ past when he began making substantial money. “You got gangsters doing records with him,” he added. “People who say, ‘Oh, I hate snitches!’ and all this, but they doing records with a police officer who put handcuffs… I got letters from guys that was in jail with him when he was a corrections officer, and they told me what a shitty guy he was.”
Freeway elaborated on the claims about Rick Ross’ behavior as a corrections officer, alleging that he took dice and money from inmates playing dice and confiscated extra soup given to some prisoners. “They say that’s the kind of cop he was,” he said. “Then when I hear that he’s the biggest gangsta rapper on the planet… It’s crazy.”
Freeway expressed his frustration over Rick Ross using his name without permission. “How would you take my name and not have the decency to ask me?” he said. “You should have asked.” He added that the rapper has never acknowledged taking the name or “paid homage” to him. “He tells people that he invented the name. Like, how the fuck do you invent this name?”
In 2010, Freeway filed a lawsuit against the rapper, but he lost the case. He explained that the judge made a technical decision based on when the public first became aware of Rick Ross using the name. “She picked a little radio station outside of Miami that played his record for the first time… So that was a date that the public first became [aware] that he was using the name.”
Rogan asked if there was a statute of limitations in this case, which Freeway confirmed. “You get two years,” he said. “I was five days late.”
Freeway mentioned that Rick Ross’ legal team spent $1.5 million on the lawsuit, but they never offered him any money. At the time, his mother was being evicted from her home, so he would have accepted anything to help her keep her home.
“I didn’t care about the name like that, I just felt that it was so disrespectful that he didn’t come out and ask me, or he didn’t show any consideration or pay any homage to the fact that he actually took my name,” Freeway said. “But yeah, I probably would have taken $250,000. If they said $300,000, I would have been tickled pink, because I felt that I didn’t need much money to get started.”
The ongoing tension between Freeway Ricky Ross and rapper Rick Ross highlights a complex issue of identity, respect, and the intersection of personal history with commercial success.
