(AllHipHop News) Freeway Ricky Ross’ recent comments about Jay Z’s drug dealing past made headlines as a diss to the legendary emcee’s street credibility, but Ross reached out to AllHipHop to address what he felt many had missed in the message he was trying to convey.
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During a recent interview with The Murder Master Music Show Ross said, “I was just reading on the airplane the other day in Vanity Fair with Jay-Z in it talking about that he sold crack. I was just reading it and it was so corny. These dudes just don’t keep it 100.”
To clarify his point the former head of a $600 million drug empire wrote in a statement:
I feel like my Esquire story starts laying things out more honestly, than the Vanity Fair piece on Jay Z. The game is real, and you’ll lose more than you win. If you sell drugs there is no rap career waiting as an exit strategy, you will either go to jail for a long time or end up dead. The kids deserve to know that, so they realize there’s better options.
Ross also goes on to share his thoughts on Jay’s public statement concerning the Barneys New York racial profiling incidents:
I read the Jay Z comments on Barney’s asking why he’s being judged, you’re being judged because that’s what comes with basing your career off the D Boy game. The game is give and take with those around you. It’s not enough to comment about Barney’s profiling when you sell products to the people possibly targeted. People that look like people you grew up with, and that are in your family. We know the reality of this country in regard to race. You stand up for them immediately when it comes to something as sensitive as racial profiling. You have to have context of American history that this profiling is happening and be honest, and demand the people you partner with to be of the type that treat your people fairly. This is the big problem of the high-end luxury these rappers talk about and have our children hooked on for status. They are not in our interest as a community, and often as seen in the profiling case they look down upon us as customers. As I said in my Hip Hop Can Heal piece on Huffington Post:
“At my height I did not make hundreds of millions to belittle those around me, this is what elitism has driven rap into becoming. A tool to marginalize the have-nots as rappers say what they invented, how they will protect it and how your less than for not being in the same class. The goal cannot be to have large sums of money to marginalize your fans with diamonds they don’t have, clothes they can’t afford or cars they have not seen.”
[ALSO READ: New Petition Started To Get Jay Z To End Partnership With Barneys]