His latest albums aren’t bad-they’re just so far beyond the mainstream viability of Ross’s neo-mafioso schtick. He’s an invaluable partner on songs with Kanye, Drake, and Lil Wayne yet Ross’s own albums tend to come and go without distinction. Ross remains an outsized character in the hip-hop landscape: He’s the mob boss with a heart of gold. He’s since struggled to reconcile his knack for absurdist embellishment and his taste for deliciously overdecorated samples with the sparser, darker tendencies in contemporary hip-hop. The latter squandered Ross’s standing with too much orchestration and too many guests. The former promoted Rick Ross to the highest command of trap music.
Rich Forever was a white tee masterpiece God Forgives, I Don’t was a black tie disaster. It’s been 10 years since Ross created an ongoing crisis in his musical career with the release of two very different projects, six months apart.
On Friday, Ross dropped his eleventh record, Richer Than I Ever Been, a musical cul-de-sac for a rapper who once lorded over hip-hop with a two-tone Audemars Piguet strapped to his iron fist. Turns out he was busy releasing an album. Coliseum somehow culminate in Hoover walking off his six consecutive life sentences? How did Kanye talk Amazon into cosponsoring such a campaign? And, most importantly, where was Kanye and Drake’s greatest partner in common? Where was the Larry Hoover superfan, Rick Ross? Where do you even start? How would Drake performing “Way 2 Sexy” for 70,000 attendees at the L.A. To date, Hoover has served 48 years on convictions for conspiracy, extortion, and murder. Last Thursday, Kanye West and Drake called a truce and put on a concert in Los Angeles to petition for legendary gangster Larry Hoover’s release from federal prison.