Rick Ross just got off house arrest, and while he's happy to be a free man, the time spent in seclusion gave him a lot of time to reflect -- ultimately inspiring the material for his upcoming studio album Black Market. In a new interview with Time magazine, the MMG bawse talked about one of the records that was inspired by this introspective time in his life, the sure-to-be informative "Ghostwriter," which will find him musing on being one of the biggest writers in the business (we knew he did some stuff for Diddy, but otherwise this is news to us).
Later on, he spoke of the role ghostwriting played in Meek Mill and Drake's beef, as well as the Belaire rosé that inspired his infamous "shoutout to all the pear" quote.
Check out some excerpts from the conversation below. Read the full interview here.
On his new album and the song "Ghostwriter":
It most definitely made it a more personal record, it made it a more—I don’t want to use the word serious, but more a topic-driven record. I had a lot of time to just sit by myself, so I had a lot more things I wanted to address. That’s what I did on this LP. I spoke on different things. One of them goes by the name of ‘Ghostwriter.’ I finally wrote a record telling the way it feels for me to be a ghostwriter, and not only a ghostwriter, but one of the biggest in the rap game. Because of my own personal success I’ve always been able to keep that in the shadows. On this record, I just felt it was so current. It was needed.
On the stigma against using writers:
It depends on really the point you’re looking at. If you’re a battle rapper on the block, the emcee battle challenger, not writing your rhymes could really hurt you. When you’re an artist where maybe the focus is really the talent and the different things you bring to the game, I believe it’s more understandable. Someone who may have another vision or just ideas that are priceless versus someone who’s like, ‘I’m basing my entire career off the words I’m finna tell you right now over this 30-second period.’ I’m not speaking to anybody in particular, but let’s say for instance if you was DMX and had a ghostwriter, it’d maybe change the [perception] versus if you was will.i.am. I think that’s more about the music, the records.
On Drake's beard:
You know, for anybody that grow a beard or have hair on their face, I welcome you to the beard game. We’re all family. I encourage that. I encourage beards.
On the "pear" comment blowing up:
There was no way I could have imagined that. I had a good time, man. We was on tour [when I said that] and that really was closing our tour out. It’s a little thing we got on tour where we call ourselves SEAL Team Six, you know what I’m saying? Leave no man behind. Because on the last night we all get drunk. You can imagine it. That night, that was really the earlier part of the night. We start drinking Belaire rosé early during the day, of course before the concert, so after the show I was really feeling good and in a great mood.
The pear association sent me a certified letter thanking me for the support. I thought it was funny. I believe they said that pear sales increased 18 percent 30 days after that.