Freeway Rick Ross Speaks On Trying To Reshape His Community From All The Damage He Has Done

we've been spending billions and billions billions of dollars every year on this boring drugs to find out that the government was involved that's pretty astonishing yes way in the mornings April 5 I want to play that clip from a documentary of emmy-nominated documentary called freeway cracking a system on al-jazeera but there's been many pieces have been done on this man freeway Rick Ross was here with us today we saw him in documentaries like American drug war the last white Pope American gangster on on be et vh1 20 rock history of crack and hip-hop documentary and humming [ __ ] if there's a crack expert he's here right now and I remember the 80s growing up in Oakland in the 70s and 80s and watching how the community and environment changed and wondered what happened and how did it happen and who was responsible for it and we found out it was this man right here freeway Rick Ross what we found out is that his prowess and selling and distributing and dilling and cocaine wasn't of his own doing it's not it wasn't possible for him to become as successful as he became at that without having help from the US government I remember Gary Webb who was a journalist who uncovered the CIA and the government's involvement in the distribution of crack cocaine in the United States and abroad and freeway Rick Ross actually had a wrote a book called freeway Rick Ross the untold autobiography that I read a while back and now he has a new book called riding with Rick the 21 keys a success written by himself and Kohli Crutcher who's here with us today give a big round of applause yeah man no doubt we go back man yeah we do we do I mean all the way back to the penitentiary when I was sitting in the pen and we still listen to you in tech on the radio you know that's how we did our time I'd be sitting in my cell listen in the yard reading my book just just so much you know and I usually listen to the artist and I'll be like that don't blow up I need some about the world famous wake up show which is still going me and King Jack and DJ revolution and sky hook we do it every Monday here on Sirius XM yeah you came in to Uwe Tech had a really good sit down one-on-one we did we did I mean just just to to to to be talking to y'all and sitting in the studio it's like a dream because I had a life sentence went when I actually listen to y'all in the jail like wow I mean this is gonna be for the rest of my life I'm being myself listening to y'all on the radio so to be sitting in the studio now it's like syringe you know and is this amazing man of what can happen to you you know once you get your mind right once you get your mind right and see that right there is a major statement just to put things in context and we're gonna kind of hit the surface you you became what they consider a kingpin from what point to what point do you think you was at your peak and 80 from 84 to like 86 they formed a freeway task force that really like threw me off my pedestal okay at that time from from 84 to 86 I was going through at least a million dollars every day of drugs when they form the freeway task force they started to ruffle my feathers a little bit well million like how how like will you catch money has fives tens twenties fifties and hundreds a million a day every day every day you didn't just land on a million a day it started from somewhere and in this book I think Coley Crutcher get so great analogies of how somebody could become a freeway Rick Ross growing up in the same environment as somebody who come become a sway hope to become a Mike Muse or have the we all kind of grew up in the same environment but something made us choose different that's it make different choices yeah your your author actually became an engineer right electrical engineer talk about the analogy why you believe he was able to take that route what I saw is you know Rick started you know in the game he was 19 years old you know what I'm saying and when I was in 19 year old I was no different than him in nineteen year old 19 year old guys want cause he wanted $5,000 to fix up his car you know I wanted to get a Corvette but what I understood when I saw him is like the opportunities that I perceived that I had were different because I was able to read from a very very very young age so it wasn't that I was good and he was bad it was the fact that I saw that I had different options so so coke selling cocaine was something that I could have done but over here I could also choose college instead of cocaine he didn't believe at that point that he could do that and so he took the opposite route of southern cocaine and now is the difference the literacy aspect of it what you believe you can do I mean I was good enough to get a scholarship in tennis but I couldn't read all right okay so how did you go so far till you got to the college age of being a college student and athlete that you didn't know how to read and write you know I've been wrestling with that because what happened is after you get to a certain point in school then you start to feel like thank God I ain't that one so I'd rather get squats then let everybody know then I'm a dummy did I'm stupid you know and and and and in people rassle with that day like why would you do that but can you imagine a kid in school who the rest of the kids find out he can't read and he's dumb punishment that they'll give you you know that's why the last for like three or four minutes but the Reta cure could go on day after day after day after day and and and and I felt that what I started to do is I started to hide my illiteracy people and I looked for ways to to disguise it to to hide it from everybody else in that was a mistake that I made as a person to to not ask for help to not ask for help and which goes to the name of this book 221 keys of success and you actually give different keys that you think people should have could apply to their lives to help them reach their success and one of them key number one is humbleness yeah you know you gotta be humble to being humble does not mean being weak or a pushover rather you do not rather you do not elevate yourself above another just because you understand that you're not fundamentally greater than another man conversely you understand that no other man it's fundamentally greater than you from this perspective you live in a mold of continuous improvement because you understand in the reality all men are created equal but you can make yourself greater by purposefully dedicate yourself to your greatness you think the boss yet you work with the effort and determination of an unpaid intern you didn't have like it was to the pry got in your way Yeah right we were just talking about this yesterday our opposite of pride is humbleness exactly right so you didn't apply your first key early on it would you know how would how would you know unless somebody teach you yeah you know like we expect our kids out on the street right now to become successful and a lot of the stuff that they're getting it is straight BS I mean we do that we've been feeding our kids straight BS you know we feeding them right now that you can go out sell cocaine or peels or all these other things and parlay that into a record career or acting career and and that's BS you know with me I fell for it I went and watched the movie Superfly uh-huh and when I left that theater Arthur Ashe wasn't my hero no more my hero had became Superfly and and I started to act out those things that I saw Superfly doing and eventually I became that that then I thought that I wanted to be um what was the first major drug deal that you made because you you say in a book that there's a difference between a drug and somebody that sold drugs what is that difference when Rick became known he became known for selling cocaine okay he was a drug dealer somebody that got famous off of something else but you go back in the net past they say oh I had to sell some drugs to get to where I came from that's somebody that sold drugs okay and so that's the difference nobody knew about the tennis I mean people in LA knew but when you say the name Rick Ross you think cocaine yeah and that's what a drug dealer is okay the how did you rise to such a high level like this guy Gary where I've talked about the CIA involvement in the drug trade how did that affect your rise well well I didn't know about the CIA when I first got started I didn't find out about the CIA I was sitting in in the courtroom in Danilo Blandon was testifying but but I feel my rise came from my determination to be successful you know I did not want to be a nobody you know I wanted to succeed at something in life you know I felt that after I had literally failed in tennis you know because I couldn't read a write so that literally was Xing out all the work I had done for six or seven years playing tennis you know three four hours a day running the heels exercising and all the effort that I put in it had had had been wasted they was like you're done if you don't get a sponsor to put you on the circuit then you're done so when I started to sell cocaine I was gonna make sure that that didn't happen and when I tried to do is I tried to dock my my eyes and cross all my T's and I started to study the business I studied the guys that was before me that I saw doing it I wanted to know where they was making their mistakes and I basically took all of the lessons that I learned from tennis and start applying it to the drug business so I run it cuz today without even knowing your affinity for tennis we saluted Althea Gibson and laid great out there Gibson in a Sports report what you hear so many young black men wanting to play basketball all the time what made you fall in love with tennis and how did you start playing tennis well I played basketball - I felt the sports was gonna be my way out basketball football and then when when it was time we was in the ninth grade and all the high schools came down and started to recruit the guys from our school to go and play football and basketball and me being so little they overlooked me so the tennis coach had always been talking to me because I was a good tennis player and he had always been talking to me about coming in his school so I took him up on that offer so you only started playing nice great no no no I started playing tennis at 12 Wow so by the time I was nine in the ninth grade I was good enough to make junior varsity and sometimes I would play you know varsity in certain games we're talking with Coley crutches - Arthur co-authored a book riding with RIT the 21 keys of success on Rick Ross is here with this as well so you were illiterate you couldn't read or write but you could add and and and you know you know we just met with with Gary Vee yesterday before yesterday and one of the things that Gary told me about myself is that I was a psychologist I could read and deal with people you know I have a special talent of being able to function with people and the admin part was easy but the functioning with people to get different people to to network to communicate to talk when they normally wouldn't talk is is is is is a trait that a lot of people are missing right now freeway Rick Ross is here and on this book and when you when you say that what Gary Vee told you is you have a knack to connect with people you got these 21 keys right and it's a play on the word key you know 21 keys I know what they were [Laughter] no different kind of keys but we wanted to we wanted to try to relate to the people on their own terms because everything I do is for my people okay I'm talking about the people out there that that's not gonna get in Harvard University you know even though I couldn't get in Harvard I didn't spoke at Brown and in st. John's and some of the biggest universities in the country now they allowed me to come in and speak because what I found out is that I had allow my community to mold me to shape me to make me feel certain ways about how I looked at certain things but now I reversed that and now I'm dictating how I feel about everything that coming to my mind I have the choice to say you know what do you believe that or do you not believe it is this for you is it not for you and I think that makes a world of difference your community told you being like that was that movie you said you watch Superfly feeling like super fire was cool your community told you having that new car it's cool that was important and now I'm through your experiences and this remind me of key number 12 you know what you're starting to discover right now find your connect is with key number 12 discover your imagination is with key numbers and this applies to what he's saying is society functions by employing a sort of necessary evil by creating illusion that the ultimate power resides with the state and simultaneously downplaying the imaginative power of each individual citizens feel that the power that governs their lives as an outside entity this necessary evil has to affect the maintaining general law and order believes the individual to ignore his real source of power when the individual discovers his imagination he realizes that even if the state has the power to sentence him to prison he by connecting to his very own human imagination has the power to free himself and you're freeing your you freed yourself or the way you used to think absolutely you see I'm using these keys you you putting it down okay so how you're giving back now to help your people is that to help reconcile the damage that you've done by being a drug dealer and circulating a lot of this poison in your people's community well you know and and and I was thinking about that the other day and I was like you know you did a lot of damage mm-hmm so you gotta do a lot of fixing yeah you know and uh that's my mission now to to to uplift that that uh that I once helped destroy absolutely and this is the way that I feel that I can do it is by sharing my experience you know my first book when I wrote that book I didn't know if I was gonna ever get out okay so that book is kind of like my letter to the young people who who might think about because you know a lot of lot of young dudes followed him out in my path you know that's my guy you know I met Dean when he was like 16 years old you know and he was just getting started you know and to see those guys following my footsteps in and and and come out the same way I came out you know door just got out a couple years ago doing 35 years and with Dylan he's 19 years old and they give him 35 years you know and to see that you help put your friends in that position because in a lot of ways I felt responsible for guys like that you know putting him in a position to get that kind of time and Darrow is now doing like the same thing he's doing work in the community he's talking to kids in Oakland all the time him and Hammer are going into the neighborhoods they're doing hands-on work right now trying to reckon that's how it works though now the community now we starting to shape our community in a different way you know like before we allowed our community shape us in one way but now we know that we can shape it in a highway the way that we see fit yeah freeway Rick Ross is here I'm gonna open up these phone lines come back and talk more about this story eight eight eight seven four two three three four five damn give us a call Gandhi playing water real [ __ ] man tell me if somebody out here freeway Rick Ross Shwetha morning say four or five he's with us right now freeway head wrong holy crud [ __ ] authors of the book ride with Rick the 21 keys of success well Rick Ross and holy talks about the mind state or the mindset of certain time periods and his journey and what he has learned from it and where he is now and some general principles that that are transformative across-the-board things that he learned as a drug dealer that you could make applicable to your everyday life even if you're a teacher or if you're a bus driver or if you work in construction or if you an executive some of these these principles still apply Universal you know and that's why I see these young guys on the street hustling and I try to talk to them and I'm like man you know you know you're a genius you know genius I know you the genius because you doing something right now that I don't think I could make it right now with all the things that these young guys are up against you know when we were selling drugs all we had to do was stay off the telephone and and watch the informants but now it's so many other elements that they've added to to catching these guys that that is crazy and I just believe that once they learned that they can take that same energy and channel it into selling books and doing movies and building buildings and becoming like electronic engineers that it's gonna be so much greater for people people miss out on the brilliance and the things that he knows simply because they look at him as a drug dealer yeah and that's what I wanted to get out of the way don't look don't look at that as the individual principles are universal you know you can use electricity to cook a great meal or you can use electricity to kill a man uh-huh and that's the whole purpose don't look at the cocaine you know look at the principles and use them for whatever you do you don't have to be a drug dealer you can use it for whatever you want let me ask you this member across the reason I didn't sell drugs is because of my moral compass yeah my knowing the difference between right and wrong I wasn't an extra religious guy you know I wasn't you know I did do some things that would be considered illegal but I couldn't go down that route right because of why nobody talks about that like what every drug dealer is dealing with is that moral compass I know that my growth is coming out somebody's else's demise well you know when I first started selling cocaine it didn't look like it was nobody else's demise oh we're talking about the guys that was buying and the women that was buying was pimps lawyers doctors the average day person couldn't afford it a gram of cocaine was $300 Oh when I first started so it was really really expensive okay and and to me it was almost like how we look at marijuana right now you know everybody smoked marijuana almost if you don't smoke you in the minority so at that time that's the way it was everybody who well somebody was smoking or using I mean if you go down a list of our entertainers the list is crazy some of the biggest entertainers that we ever you know Quincy Jones had surgery for cocaine Don Carney is Richard Pryor so to me it was like bringing a piece of Hollywood to the ghetto do you feel like the influx what is your take on the influx of this drug being very prominent becoming very prominent in the in the so called ghettos or the disenfranchised communities being a diabolical plan set to really tear apart these communities and keep us stagnant well I didn't believe that when I first started okay it was only after I started getting all of the information you know I'm going to trial now Gary Webb had publishes his story in the San Jose Mercury News Danilo Blandon had testified I saw Danilo Blandon who they said had sold upwards of over 10,000 kilos of coke he got 28 months in prison could could not understand that when I was in prison with he got 28 months yeah yeah two years four months in prison and and I knew guys like Richie Rich who just got out he went to prison in nineteen years old they gave him life without the possibility of parole he just got out he did about 35 years little D got 30 years so I started to look at all and add and say well well maybe they've been using this as a weapon you know maybe it wasn't just they were trying to raise the money for the Contras but maybe this was a way to get the undesirables off the street you know put this attractive little shiny thing out there and and and knowing that as kids we all like shiny things you know yeah we all like that we like those lights baby we like those light colors on those suits and we was drawn to that that we like yeah you know and and I definitely believe that it was used purposely I don't know you know that's been the question with with with Gary story a lot of people attacked Gary because they say he said that the government deliberately attack the black community you don't believe that I don't know if they did or not I can't say for certain that that was their plan but that's what happened okay you know it wind up being attack on the owner on the black community at the end of the day so was it a plan or not I don't know but it happened okay man a freeway Rick Ross see I want to take a few callers and it's book 21 Keys a success it's not a guy to becoming a great drug dealer it's a guy to not be coming to becoming great great okay all right we got Alonso from Cali good morning Alonzo all right what's all right man well you know we trying to we trying to set the record straight that's right well you know I was listening this morning on my way to work and I wanted to share something with you man I did some time for selling myself and um it just so happens I got caught up in being some time up in Indiana with your your partner in crime being a Lee aka Augusto yes yeah yeah we was at Westfield together man and it's around the time you were down in San Diego and Montel Williams get that little show on yep yep I remember yeah however they did I don't know they found out that Ali was up there and said paperwork and Montel Williams want to do a show or interview him or something like that and I remember us being on the yard and talking about it I heard he had like six months left my total man don't do it did he do it no he didn't hey Alonso good to know that you out and that you a citizen man Alonso out and got serious exhale me - I'm doing well Terrence Jeter from Buffalo which requested hey ain't nothing - I know big man first of all shameful fun I love y'all I'm listening to y'all every morning man but first I do want to appreciate you helping me get these tears out the way for a second while this conversation in this topic is is on a radio today surprised the hell out of me man and that [ __ ] is bothering me bad talk about that we met wheels people manage financial literacy man this [ __ ] got me right back I mean I appreciate your book and I must say yes you know you is not intended to be a great drug dealer but damn it see me on my set you become a great anything you want to be so I don't been through the struggle man I've been I'm still here rocking in my city still here pushing positive movement well for all of my people yet pops ain't there yes well meanwhile yet Israel people black people how here in a 30 now what I look like somebody is smart for me what I look like looking for mentor well good well yeah you right if I smoke me a but I can be cool with them with everybody that's the majority but if I try to change I try to help help everybody who broke is [ __ ] out here goochy goochy now tired breath and nobody teaching a [ __ ] [ __ ] but we still have to bottom well [ __ ] lion come to get to build something for market everything about it that was deep that's what that's what we saying at the same time is that how can you know lesson somebody teach you and that's what me and Koli is taking on right now we want to teach our people how how we can get out of this situation all right we got Koli crusher who was the co-author of the book riding with Rick the 21 keys of success and Rick Ross is here I remember that quote from jay-z to saying like Fame is one of the biggest drugs out here is so addictive but what happens when a lot of you people say I got to help my moms like we got to get out of this apartment when you how many cars is enough cars and how much jewelry is enough jewelry and how many houses is enough houses how much Gucci is enough Gucci before like that drug dealer says let me get out the game is it that hard is it that addictive when when do people say I had enough like when do you stop what southern drugs is probably more addictive than than than actually using because when you selling drugs there's very few people that I tell you to quit I mean you don't have people coming up after in the beginning when my mom first started hearing that I was involved with drugs she didn't know if I was using a cell and then she boy stop stop but after you get so big and so powerful that most of the people around you or eating off of your plate so they're not gonna tell you to quit because if you quit then they don't have anything to eat so it's a lot different and a drug user a drug user people be saying you ought to quit that you leave that stuff along but a deal is totally the opposite so it gets to the point to where not only are they not telling you to quit but they start to count on you and and you almost start dealing drugs for other people so that so that they can benefit to continue the addiction yes okay how much money I know what they said in the court but how much money do you think you made selling cocaine as a whole overall I don't know man over over my whole eight years I saw drugs for eight years okay I started off with $125 Ali had $125 we put it together we went from making $20 a week two thousand dollars a day to ten thousand a day a hundred thousand a day five hundred a day to you know we had days that we made as much as three million dollars we did that for two years but before that we had days that we made five hundred thousand not profit though yeah safe safe fencing on on a million dollar deal our profit party was like two hundred thousand thousand twenty percent on that exact okay but she was felt in a million dollar at that time was equivalent to how many keys a million bucks party like 100 keys nine hundred years so a million dollars a day let's say 90 to 100 keys a day that's 500 keys little six seven hundred keys a week because you didn't take sunday off to go to church no I'll try so that's a lot of drugs in different various communities country so would you say you made over 900 million in your time not profit no not profit I probably touched I probably touched a couple billion dollars though am I in my lifetime a couple of billion dollars with that money he could have built the wall what are your thoughts on birder on border security you know this was a big topic right now building the wall can stop people from coming in it was what a lot of folks believed that drugs wouldn't come in no man it can't keep drugs out our Penitentiary's my first scene when you go to it to a maximum-security penitentiary what they do is they put you in what they call solitary confinement I'm gonna be in the cell by yourself until you get classified to make sure that you can go in the yard because everybody can't go in New York you know some people go into your they gonna get stabbed soon as they walk on the yard so they put you in what they call classification while I was in classification a guy od'd oh hi Ryan right there in the cell so what that told me is that they can't keep drugs out of the maximum security max yeah not this new maximum security penitentiary but inside of the penitentiary there's a maximum security that they couldn't keep drugs out of there so if they can't keep drugs out of there and these walls are like two feet thick yeah I mean you're gonna take a bulldozer to get through these walls if they can't keep drugs out of there then there's no way that they can keep them outside of this country freeway with crosses here my views wildly fascinating bro and for you to have sort of a three million dollars per day I'm just curious about infrastructure and what does that look like because one would think for you to sell that across the country to get through ports of entry and borders that you had to have some type of connection either within law enforcement either federal agents at the borders to control that influx of drugs coming in and out can you talk to us a little bit about that well you know my supplier was connected to the Contras the Contras was connected to the CIA so they used military planes to take supplies to Nicaragua to fight the war they flew those same planes back to America with cocaine so I never experienced that part of it I didn't know anything about that part when I doing it but once we got into this whole contrary web story we found out that they were being allowed to use airplanes that wasn't being searched had wasn't being cleared you know it was just like this is a military operation a CIA operation let it go they went as far as going to the Attorney General accident attorney general because that was a law in the books that said that if a government agent knew that somebody was committing a crime against the United States that they had to report that well the CIA went to the Attorney General and Aksum if they could take that off the books and they were allowed to take that off the books where they didn't have to report that their operatives were selling drugs so you were partners with the US government technically I mean I mean technically anybody that was in jail for cocaine had been what does it call Expo facto where Ronald Reagan had literally okay cause Ronald Reagan says on itself that he's gonna do whatever it takes for the Contras yeah you know he was fully pledged to make sure that the Contras won that war but he didn't want to pay for it so we sold drugs well he couldn't pay for a member of Congress took the money from like they won't allow Trump to build a wall uh-huh so if Congress go against you to build in the wall you can't build a wall unless you find other avenues to to raise the money and what Danilo said on the witness stand is that they got the money from from the arms that they sold Iran but it was only 18 million dollars and it was like what 18 million dollars we came fighting a war with 18 million but we could take the 18 million and buy cocaine and turn it into 40 million and that's how they say they got started okay here we go we got this last question sorry what the AB so with that being said as we talk about the the war on drugs as it stands now and we see the attack on the war on drugs seems to be for the local particularly black and brown communities black and brown men do you feel that it's being misplaced and should we look at the larger fish in terms of the actual way the distribution and the way the drugs actually comes into America should we examine that well well we can't I ate our way out of this problem you know it's a problem that's too big for incarceration you know we would have to lock up 50 million people because there's 50 million people that's involved with drugs not only did I study the law but I also started studying drug addiction when I was in prison because I wanted to be once I was not educated but then I wanted to be educated so I started studying all the different facets about drugs who uses drugs why they use drugs like most people think that blacks use more crack cocaine than anybody else not true not affect whites use twice as much crack cocaine is blacks but blacks are easier to arrest before the cocaine then then whites are okay man riding with Rick the 21 keys of success Rick Ross and Koli crutches and that's pathetic Arthur that's the name of the book this is obviously a conversation that we could have in an extended form no doubt yeah and I really appreciate your honesty and transparency about it and I and I appreciate you trying to reconcile the damage that was done as a result of you being such a success we have to we have to do that yeah and um listen and I know your business man you got a lot of legitimate businesses now what's next for you well you know right now I got my man come overnight I got my artist with me we've been to put his record out we doing it the same way we did the book say what's up what's the name of a song you got out I got one song it's called depression and over a million on Spotify YouTube iTunes it was it was real like deep because it was a song that a lot of people could relate to okay and what yeah a lot of folks are speaking about you know mental health right now and so you you been to depression I've been through a depression before and I lost like 20 20 pounds from it uh-huh the story from that song was from abroad I was close to me his mom died so I was really speaking through him with that song give out to a social media mr. Blaine aku that's why [ __ ] why and aku you you can find me everywhere I got a song with rich the kid out right now song with little Y we turned up man I got my what's the name of the label we name the label yet man we just right now we just ground ground ground you know we just come from Atlanta for Super Bowl weekend we did about 10 clubs and basically what I'm teaching him is is what I've been trying to teach everybody else is that you don't have to have a lot to get started you know you can start with nothing if you put the work in and uh that's what we're doing right now we just put in the work here man you know we're gonna be shooting the movie till we finance on the movie working with Reginald Hudlin and Kim Harding on the movie we hope to start shooting in about March and April the jeweler rolls they ever get cool we haven't yet man I reach out to him a few times you know and then everytime they're not you know I take a crack at him before fun but with me it's all love with me I have absolutely no hard feelings toward him or Ricky Rozay a formerly known that's Rick Ross yeah yeah I have absolutely no hard feelings and and I'm hoping that uh one day that me and him can come together and show everybody that no matter what your differences are you can saw those and get some money together it's interesting because I know Myron my interactions what he's always been a great do you know real solid lot very everybody say that to do he's a good dude you two sat down y'all probably swap so many cool air stories yeah I got a sit down man time for different so I put it again I want to thank y'all for coming through man thank you for having and come back all right hi the 21 keys of success riding with Rick the 21 keys of success up next man we're gonna talk a little Valentine's Day we got a matchmaking expert coming up [Music] [Music]

Channel: SWAY'S UNIVERSE

Views: 51,752

Rating: 4.8760686 out of 5

Keywords: Sway In The Morning Interview, Sway Calloway, Celebrity Interviews, Freeway Rick Ross, Drug Kingpin, New Book, Freeway Ricky

Id: 70e-qdXjc0I

Length: 39min 37sec (2377 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 14 2019