Freeway Ricky on doing 20 Years for selling coke & Rick Ross stealing the Name

all right so let me just ask you this question because this is something I feel like I end up encountering quite often is like you meet a young person they're in the game they're doing illicit deeds but you you admire the enthusiasm and the passion and how excited they are about entrepreneurship but then at the same time you're like you dumbass you're gonna end up in jail does this happen to you a lot if they learn how to channel that passion that determination and that energy into something legit they'll be a force to be reckoned with right because it's like that is that's kind of the irony of it is that that is stage one entrepreneurship question a lot of people no question especially when you grow up or in the ghettos of the United States that's usually the first tray that you see and you know that that if most entrepreneurs see a lesson they grow up you know in privileged households you know I talk about all the time you know why the rappers rap about selling drugs is because their first role models are more than likely drug dealers mm-hmm because it's hard for them to relate to you know if you look at the guy who owns the supermarket it's like he's an entrepreneur to most likely and it's but it's hard for you as a young person to imagine like how you could ever possibly go through enough steps to get to that situation for somebody like you I'm sure even the idea of being a lawyer or a doctor I mean that's completely out of the realm of something you could consider whereas these guys were on your level know that will you look at a supermarket what's the entry-level one in the supermarket you got about a man and you talk about here in Los Angeles to buy a lot that a supermarket is on or a supermarket is already-existing you're talking about a couple million bucks so you know now here you're talking to somebody who may not have twenty dollars in their pocket but now if you can get up on five or ten dollars you can take that and pour lay that into a career you can start right now with five dollars and drugs and you can make a million dollars a day mm-hmm and then the irony though is that we were describing some drugs as like stage one of entrepreneurship but then they throw you in jail until you're 35 a lot of room for people to make mistakes no not at all I mean and you know it's it's really it's really weird to me the way that they treat drug dealers so differently than they do the users and I believe personally that they're both equally culpable hmm because if you take away the drug user there's no need to have dealers and if you take away dealers then the users can't get their drugs so so I believe that they're both equally culpable even though the system has treated them you know with great differences and when it comes down to sentencing and and so forth you ever read any of these like studies that they'll do in Europe in particular where they'll like take someone who's addicted to heroin and then they like bring them into a clinic or whatever every day and they give them certain amount of like pure drugs or whatever it's all administered through the government and everything so it's safe and then they end up that a lot of the negative impacts that come with being a drug a drug addict sort of vanish once taking care of your addiction is sort of placed into this system where you don't have to be doing all the stuff that normally comes along with a musician run around the streets dirty needles yeah every time I read a lot of that when I was in prison I mean you know when I was in prison I wanted to know as much about drugs the business addiction that I could possibly learn and yes I I read studies where they were doing and uh it had been London and they were talking about how people at one time was strung out but then they become functionable drug addicts where they would go to work on time I pick the kids up from school I mean they were doing everything almost like cigarette smoke was here you know cigarettes are cheap enough that people can afford them without having going Rob forward you know what with most drugs that illegal drugs right now is it has an inflated price mmm you know it has a price that's that prohibition marked it up and and what what happens is that it drives it to where the normal person working on a job can't afford it when in actuality it really has no value it only has the value that we placed on it mm-hmm yeah that is weird to think about through because like the price bumps happen at the borders essentially this imaginary line between Mexico and America and all the sun's worth sometimes more than a costume these are probably worth 20 bucks you know for kilo of cocaine coca leaves and then once they process it it might be worth four or five hundred bucks but then once they put it on the back of the mule you know it's just it's just constantly escalates and escalates until you know it's here in America where you know when I was doing it the first time I bought a kilo was forty five thousand four kilo and the last kilo I bought was nine thousand five hundred right so you just kept getting closer and closer to the source yeah well that was one thing I was thinking when I was watching the documentary last night is like a lot of the the prices for cocaine or four kilos that he seems to be citing seemed like they're probably still pretty much the same rates these days like twenty five thirty thousand ish well now it is I heard it's around here but we were able to drive it down you know we drove across town on like I say the cheapest I forgot it was 95 and they probably could have went lower than that you know knowing now what I know now you know I thought whoo-wee 95 Danny making no money right but you know once you find out what it actually costs and what's the real value they were still making good money you ever go to Colombia and sure no man they offered me the opportunity but you know I was I do all right you think you would have left a lot I don't know no it's crazy you know and they wanted me to bring my money over to Colombia with three million there ones you get on a plane with three million dollars yeah this is a different age it's pre 9/11 right I mean it was it was you know they had the metal detectors damn but not the body scanners in in the whole setup we have now no hmm wow that's incredible I guess for people out there they probably want to kind of understand at least a little bit of like how you got into the game basically like how you went from a citizen to a person who would then go on to become essentially one of the great American cocaine dealers of all time well you know you know it happened gradually you know and it starts from environment you know seeing other people participate and then not being able to read you know limited my opportunities of what I could do and what I couldn't do you know it gave me less of a choice my plan was to go to college and play tennis not knowing that not being a to read that no college was gonna accept me I thought that it would be like it was in high school would you figure that out so too late it was too late in terms of the tennis thing yeah well you gifted at tennis I worked hard you know it's something about working hard and being gifted they kind of like go to go together and that was the case with me you know I was pretty good I wasn't as good as a couple of my friends you know how to cope friends go on to turn pro and I think one made it top hundred in the world one when he graduated from college I think he was in the top six and in the country I mean him played one into it and I school and when he got ready to go pro I was able to help him go pro you know I was like hi I chose a better job than you did good luck with tennis right but do you think I was Arthur Ashe that big of a inspiration to you absolutely was that huge is he the one who made you feel like you could do it what the ash it was tremendous um I mean you know I just I just loved him I loved everything about his attitude his willingness to give back you know the coming to gummy community but you know what I'll go to the theater one day and I see this other guy and he takes heart to ashes place you know now it's like okay alright the ash is cool but this other guy oh it's super fly guy the guy with the Cadillac there's a weird line like you know a lot of times I've been talking to rappers and there was a whole movement in LA at the Gherkin movement night 2011-2012 where it's like you know young kids and the whole vibe of it was very fun and everybody's dancing and making these videos put them online and everybody dancing and then they all described how then you know just being an adult caught up with them in the sense that all of a sudden it just be you know it's too irresistible to be running around with guns and being in gangs and [ __ ] like that for these young kids and all these kids who are essentially part of this like fun love and dance movement essentially at certain points sort of just separated and got more into the street life and do you feel like that's kind of similar oh absolutely absolutely I mean if you if you look at the video is that net we're saying on on you know on the screen and all through the 90s you know it started to take place you know what a gangster rappers started to make a move and and the record labels started to fun that movement you know they wanted to gangster rappers I mean it goes as for as uh I don't know if you heard but it was a letter that was circulated at one time where when the record label was said that they were to making money selling records so they invested in prisons so they also started promoting prison music you know music that would tell young kids to go out and take and shoot up people and in all sorts of ridiculous things and and the kids believe that their heroes were doing it and getting away with it you know like all you can go out and shoot somebody and become a rap star you know and that's the ticket to getting in I mean it's just easier to sell violence and death than it is to sell good times and positivity absolutely absolutely you know they say bad news travel fast hmm so they they play on it you know and hopefully we can combat that with some positivity and let him know that there's other ways because I wish I would have had somebody that could have grabbed me and showed me how I could take my energies and my determination and my willingness to to to sacrifice almost everything you know I was willing to sacrifice my life I was willing to kill for it and you know when I got the present and I was I was really thinking right I was thinking to myself I'm in my cell and I'm sitting there and I'm like wow he was willing to sacrifice your own family you know it was days that I would write well my mom wouldn't move out our neighborhood it became a thing in ever they were they were kidnapping drug dealers and keeping that many families and stuff like that and you know one day I'm riding down the street and I see my son's riding their tricycles in front of my mom's house cuz my mom wouldn't move and I said to myself if somebody do something to my kids I'm gonna hunt them down and when I got the prison and I thought about what I was saying and I was like wow you put your kids in danger hmm from the line of work that she was doing because just getting into that position alone regardless of anything else you kind of know that you're putting everybody around you at risk absolutely absolutely everybody I mean I've known people where you know people went in and killed everybody in the house you know I've been in jail with you know guys that was accused of killing everybody that was there you know what happened when we're gonna be no witnesses yeah and in a weird way you can understand it too because that's just the rules of the aim is that uh yeah point bunch of people got to die in order for all the territory to be figured out right absolutely absolutely and then when you know when you plan a game and you don't know the rules hmm you know a lot of times we we get into situations and we did our homework we just got in you know everybody else was in we got in you know and you look up well we know perfect works that's perfectly planned no how'd I get here no but when you when you look back at yourself as a young boy was there any reason for you to think that you would have such a limitless ambition no I never thought that I would I would be like this I mean it's it's kind of nerve-wracking too because it carries on it wasn't just cocaine base no no no it's everything I do is like this you know you know I like my brother you know watch football games all day and and chill and smoke him Adobe in maybe tranq him a beer and and he's good me know I'm pacing the floor watching my phone calling this person hey well you that well we did this what's going on with that you know constantly looking for an advantage huh and you always had that always ever since I can remember man you know when we were little or like 12 years old I used to organize car washes in front of the house I used to cut yours I saw some bottles from the neighbors I mean you know I have enjoyed making money all my life I mean I really really get a kick out of it you know oh my old ladies they get mad at me I can't keep old lady cuz they don't like it you know they don't like I guess being ignored you know like I might come in I'm into the floor right and not only see her you not personally a personal and then you got to figure out a balance at a certain point it's like I can't just come home and do what I like once you enter the house like once you come back home it's like you can't you can't I want to be looking at my phone I want to be doing what everybody it's like I have to find a way to like separate myself from that crazy entrepreneur version of myself That moment when I come home just to keep the girl happy yeah that's a tough thing to learn right there yeah it is and I really enjoy what I'm doing so you know get with it you know come on join me that's that's getting the phone together you know why why can't we have fun making money mm-hmm but it's hard to find girls are on the same page yeah right and and black women are worse more respect more Goods more time [Laughter] so you've always only dated black woman yeah I never did anything outside of black I don't know so in such a short time you know and not really knowing other races you know when when I was growing up in South Central you know was nobody else coming this off century is now I was kind of integrating where you know Hispanics are moving in and occasionally somebody wired to come through but I didn't have many white friends I think I only had like one or two white friends in my whole life right one was a guy that played football with some some of my friends who got busted out to the valley and he would come back valiant and just hang out in the neighborhood and every time he would come over the police would be like what are you doing and you are right you know as if he was kidnapped or something like that so it wasn't really that much intermingling between between the two I think the first time that I really had really had a real real relationship with with somebody outside of black was my lawyer when I was going to prison and was visiting every day talking you know two three hours a day in the visiting room when I really got to start to know what it was like you know or had any clue of what it was like you know to be other than black right so when you started selling cocaine no how long were you on the you know the smaller program of selling grams or son ounces or whatever how long before you actually moved up the move in serious weight and what had to take place in order for you to make that succession it took a couple months ready to catch on to what I was doing months yeah yeah it took some months it didn't happen no oh y'all overnight success no it didn't happen overnight no but couple months seems like pretty much overnight to me I mean most people sell grams for many years and I know guys are so hang on me back there still selling coke and the only back yeah go buy the new shoes me I didn't do that she went into the fancy [ __ ] that's what they want watching the documentary that's why mom was straight is she watching tennis shoes your pants and everything but you were making a shitload of money and you're still with your mom for a significant period time yeah yeah yeah when she found I don't know she kind of knew I was doing something but she didn't really know right and she kicked me out her house already because too many people coming over you know you got too much company I don't know what you're doing get out of here I'm living in her garage anyway I ain't living in a house I'm living in a garage she told me out the garage so but she still allowing me to come in and keep stuffing my money so what'd you think it was kind of green yeah I was like really confused by the well you get this wrong probably not that confused probably kind of you get out right now I think her house cost like fifteen thousand right right and she was paying like 150 a month you know something man she was like can you get out right now yeah just quit I was like nah mom like that mom when you got into it though was cocaine not so stigmatized that it really didn't seem like it was like that like you really thought that you weren't doing something so bad oh no it was it was almost like almost like how people look at marijuana right now right you know like everybody that was hit was doing it yeah like if you had some money if you had some money your freebasing you know they would be bragging all week on a freebase in a night and you know what freebase down for right do you know what it's employ freebase freebasing was a saying that they just say to somebody who didn't have money oh you a freebase er mmm you know you you want to be a baser but if you ain't got no money you a freebase there okay so you know we base them for free all for somebody else's product so that's where I started really yeah you know it's crazy is that you were on such an early version of the Joe Rogan podcast crazy early like super bad quality video and stuff and it was funny too because he's asking you like very like rudimentary entry level like cocaine questions like why does crack like why is crack you know way more than coke it's like well you're mixing it with something else in cooking it's gonna weigh more yeah actually more of the drugs there's kind of cute seeing Joe Rogan in that position [Laughter] yeah he had me on twice matter of fact you know Joe gave me a great idea you know what was up well you know when I got out I was doing really bad uh-huh my mom lost her house and what year are we talking when you got off from your first bid and how long was it no no this is my second beat okay but the first bid was how long I did five years in like six months okay then you got out for how long before you went in six months okay alright breaker yeah it worse yeah never never get out of jail from doing five years and go back in six you don't be [ __ ] up yeah I mean that's like the worst feeling in the whole world how long was the second bid though like fourteen okay and you got approximately what year 2009 exactly I know I know that day right that's the day Wikipedia got for my birthday May 2000 I mean May 2009 the fourth day well there's gotta be somebody out there can fix that for you we did I don't know how many times but they they want that to be my birthday I guess that's the day then I reread it you know le times and I die so right I guess I reacted that day so you're talking about you got approximately 2009 or so what was the idea gave you I say that again the Joe Rogan idea that he gave you oh well I went on the show and I was you know just time about how you know how I was going you know what things wasn't going wasn't going well for me financially and Joe was like man you need a t-shirt t-shirt a t-shirt I couldn't I couldn't I couldn't I couldn't I couldn't found him you know what a t-shirt could do for you you know I'm like it wasn't something I thought was tangible well anyway I thought left his show I'm walking down the street and I ran this guy named Rick Kwok I don't know if you know who that is but he's he's the founder of fresh jive oh yeah okay yeah so he was like man I got an idea for you enjoy Rogen show and I got an idea for a t-shirt for you and so he said the real boss is not a rapper selling t-shirts always will give you that feeling like damn that's corny they might work but you know I said you know what what the hell I ain't got nothing to lose he was like I'm gonna pay for it I'm opening up and do everything I'm gonna design it I said let's do it so we did the shirt man and I go back to Joe's show and Joe put the shirt on he wore I don't on the podcast he puts it on man my paypal went crazy I went crazy I mean like I said we we were living in bacon apartment you know that a friend was managing and he allowed me to stay there wild I got myself back together and uh and we woke up one morning it was 18,000 dollars in PayPal really yeah yeah he must have felt like damn I'm back Sandow oh and then ironically t-shirt is like slang for cocaine from time to time right it is you know they've used every if you was an investigation everything you say Oh get 10 of those microphones kilos ten sets of headphones two headphones and I mean anything carburetors you know I've seen so many different things be interpreted as cocaine when when you go to court when you look at the game like I know obviously you're not thinking about selling drugs at this point your life but when you look at the game you must look at the surveillance the level of you know social media everything the game must seems so different to you in terms of like like when you got into it it must have seen my damn and easy as game to get into in comparison to how [ __ ] crazy [ __ ] is now with all the surveillance and stuff yeah I mean I couldn't have made it right now with all these damn cameras yeah that's crazy I've been breaking people phones and don't take no picture of me what are you doing yeah yeah I mean it's it probably would play both ways you know because you probably would be a little more organized but then when you're more organized when you go to court they get all your organization records and and present all that didn't you know when I went to court they had no records no no phone taps what they did have is they had a recording where Danilo was recording our conversation but they had no no phone records anything like that the Aryan and they used the neo like you said to decode all of the order to write all of the code words you know like them and that what is he saying when he say them and what is he talking about because six nine when he got caught up recently it was based on the cops thought that he was about to get killed because his former associates said on the phone that they were gonna super violate him and like being haven't spent a long time in New York I could probably confirm that violate is like a very common thing out there and if you were to say super violate yep that probably means somebody was gonna get killed yeah so it was like weird to see that the cops had to be able to decode that one even though I guess it's not that advanced Wow so they had to go they had to take him down that they caught him because they thought he was gonna get killed that weekend when they arrested him yeah well you know I've known cases where the cops actually got somebody could kill really yeah yeah it was a matter of fact the reason you know right now and the feds only get 300 minutes a month on the phone that they can record you right so they can record you but 300 minutes is how much they can record you per month oh no that's the only that's all the minutes you get every month oh okay you get 300 minutes a month on the phone right that's it that's your limit you know I'll spread them out that's why because it was a guy who was trying to have his informant killed while he was in prison really the feds were listening to the conversation and he wound up the hitman wound up killing the wrong person but they said that for people to have unlimited phone minutes made it really difficult for them to monitor the conversations even though they knew that the guy was gonna kill somebody but they didn't know exactly who it was and they didn't stop it were you calling any shots from jail no I mean you know I'm still you know I never really called shots on like that I've been more like a motivator you know I like to consider myself as somebody who makes people better at whatever they're doing in the black arena we don't really have necessarily shot-callers you I mean there are shot callers but they're not it's not like you know like the Mexican Mafia you know like you got a lineup you got to exercise every day well in our community we don't do that you know they have rules where they can't sit at certain tables if you're black in prison you say wherever you want you know as long as the other group accepts you you know you don't get into no ride with them will you bring everybody into it so so it's it's kind of a different set of rules for the black community what point do you start to sort of envision yourself as being able to be the person that you've really like turned into over the past few years in the sense that you could be a motivator you could take your story and that people would want to hear it that you could eventually monetize this this new image that you created for yourself when did that start to form in your murine well you know I was sitting in prison I the first time I was reading a book by Malcolm X and Alex Haley and uh I started to see what he was doing and I was like I can do that you know I can do the same thing that he's doing and then I started to go even deeper and because they wrote an article about me in the Cincinnati uh inquiry and in this article who was the front page and they had this was a year that it was a presidential year so they had Bill Clinton Ross Perot George Bush Senior all them was on on the page and on the other side of them they had one big picture of me the two million dollar man come to town to go to trial and my picture was bigger than all three of their pictures and I was like wow they just put you bigger than the presidents you know like that's a big deal yeah so when I started thinking about that I started to think well how can you take this and use this to your advantage hmm like that power of celebrity was just you just start to realize that it was right there for you yeah that's that's what I started to realize and and and I never really knew that before you know when I was on the street I was kind of shelter mmm you know I had like my 3040 guys and I didn't really like go around a lot of people you know it's like the information came to me you know it didn't I didn't go out looking for information looking for different things that they really bought me everything that I needed you know so I was kind of sheltered of what was going on and I was surprised when I got to jail how big I was you know I didn't know I was as big as I was and until I got this yelled and started hearing stories about me right because like the [ __ ] the legends about you at that time I'm free free internet free everything like you know it's just that stuff was just traveling I was I was in jail one time LA County Jail and it was about seven of us in a holding cell we were getting booked in and this one guy sitting here telling three or four guys that he was waiting on me to come bail him out right oh my cousin come to bail me out and then he's telling these stories about how much cocaine was on the table was my own the cocaine was all just Norden talking about me and I'm sitting right here listening to him and he don't even know it's me right so there must be a lot of stories on that goes on in that environment because there's not a lot of ways to fact-check people on helicopters and airplanes and you know women and I mean it just go on and on houses and write you know the stories is unlimited but what's crazy is that from from my perspective is there like people who've been in prison and stuff is that in reality most of those people haven't really done a lot with their lives so they're pretty impressed by almost anything I was talking to a friend of mine who's like a probiem ex-writer he's like man when I'm in prison I'll be sitting there telling them a story about like being in Paris and everybody is like spellbound because ain't nobody been to Paris no most of those guys you know like they think most of the drug dealers are rich and and you know most I'm not you know Ram report did a study one time and they said the most drug dealers live with their mama you know so a lot of the stereotypes that we believe are not true and we just have to you know just keep searching to to get better and educate and you know that's really what I'm trying to do now I want to educate the world about the world of drugs you know the people who've never been in it who haven't been around it just basically let them know you know what you're gonna go through how are you gonna be affected and so forth is that weird for you to watch how much the weed game has changed over these years because I mean it's pretty unlikely that we'll see cocaine getting any sort of similar treatment through our lives but it's crazy to see like I got friends who were who are here hanging out all the time like they did five ten years off marijuana charges yeah yeah that's amazing yet and still people doing time right now today but but I'm glad they changed the marijuana laws you know from my understanding marijuana is is a healthy drug you know maybe a miracle plant you know definitely that's the saying on a CBD and it was treated just like marijuana just you know before a couple years ago so I'm really excited that they that they're doing the new laws you know only thing I'm mad about is I ain't got a license that's rough yeah I wanna I want to get a license man and uh and get in the game when you hear about all the costs that they'd be thrown on growers and stuff all of a sudden now though it's like this crazy reality check of like when you think about what people were selling pounds four five years ago and how much different the game is now and stuff it's like it's unbelievable they're gonna change it into a [ __ ] complete come out of the business we're like locally-owned people aren't going to be able to have any way to get into the legal game right oh no doubt no doubt it's gonna be controlled by big money they already bind up masses amounts of property up in humble and in different places and you know even like now with a lot of our big companies like you know coca-cola invested one hundred million dollars over in Canada and some and some companies that that's in the marijuana and it was another company they did - it's like two or three companies it was was on the news a couple months back and it was talking about how they're going over to Canada because they can't invest here so they're investing in Canada which wound up happening the Canadians come back over here and buy everything up so eventually if if the cities and and we as the people don't put some type of regulations down then we will just be consumers of marijuana and have absolutely nothing to do with the business aspect and you'd think they're like you would always just be able to get it on the street from someone which is like almost everybody I know is like buying it from some local guy who sells weed or whatever instead of going to the store and getting ripped off but then at the same time it's like I know people who have like grow operations whatever they got the legal ones there are cameras in there so you can't sneak anything out of there you know it's tough to everything regulated this [ __ ] it's crazy yeah they say it's tough to get somebody to you know but you know they're gonna figure out a way the system we have every every time they come up with something to stop him they figure out a way around it so you know it's that cat and mouse game you know you know and it's probably gonna go on but I don't think they're gonna be able to stop the black market because people like Bob from people they know you know borrow from their friends so and I think as long as that is the case then I think that the black market is going to continue to thrive and in the prices that they're charging inside of dispensaries are ridiculous you know the only people I know or paying those rates are people who don't smoke good job no I haven't smoked in a long time I hate them I do the edibles oh really yeah yeah is that well you know like about smoking I won't stop really yeah once I start I just keep going I had expensive habit when when I should smoke you know when you were like originally out doing your thing my goodness did I smoke weed I had him on private roller really yeah his job was just to ride around in grow weed all day [Laughter] smoking right were you doing coke a certain point I did it for about a week maybe and we can hand what was that week like best week your life I don't know about that I woke up I was messed up my my thought was so I was like I never doing that again right you know I never partying and and it used up all my money when I got to my first ounce you're not throwing I was rich you know back then I'll see you party was worth about nine thousand and so my cousin's they was there was already smoking so well put some on some weeds Lisa call them Primo's yeah I mean I've done it but I also feel like I've heard so many people say they smoke and coke and a blunt doesn't really do what it's supposed to do oh no it got me high I had to quit that's too good it was too good for me yeah I remember cuz like a person in a room he found a blunt that this old house we lived in and we all starts smoking and there's one dude who's faded as far like the dude who knows what every drug is like he's been [ __ ] up for his whole life and he [ __ ] his shoes [ __ ] he starts telling us his kokkonen and all of a sudden I start noticing that everybody in the room is tripping out and acting kind of weird all of a sudden and then we realized that this was like a coke blunt that somebody's like yeah least everybody in the house with tweakin I was weirdest day ever after that it stinks though it did it smelled weird weird they got a weird smell to it we'll see what they started doing is they started rocking it mmm and then putting the crumbs at a rock inside of the blunt and it didn't had a weird smell it was okay so when you look back at your career selling drugs though do you like I feel like ego you don't seem like your ego ever really got ahold of you in the way that we expect in the average drug dealers story that we listen to you don't seem like you were ever the dude who all of a sudden was rocking all the fur coats and [ __ ] sort of sort of stable I mean I didn't get anything for that you know I got in it because I wanted better you know I wanted to have an opportunity to to make something for myself you know and I didn't see the fur coats at gold and the Diamonds as me bettering myself you know I thought about businesses you know create jobs create opportunity that would buy the Diamonds the car as the house is later on down the line and and that's where I put my energy in you know trying to create businesses but it's like interesting cuz in my head I'm kind of comparing you to like I just seen Joe Rogan interview Mike Tyson recently and you know he's it's like another guy who you know has this image as being the most extreme version of something like you know for you it's like I guess entrepreneur drug based entrepreneurship for him it's just being able to beat the [ __ ] out of somebody but either way it's like you know he succumb to that fully became this like ridiculous caricature of what you could possibly be as just a tough brawler and now he's so removed from that and to the point where he almost doesn't even wanna talk about any of his victories and [ __ ] like that because that that shadow that's been cast upon him his whole life from how big his success was it's like he doesn't even really relate to that version of himself anymore yeah but you're a little bit more like middle-of-the-road in the sense that I don't think you ever fully gave in to all the temptations but then you can also sit here and have like a very matter-of-fact conversation about what you did while you were out there and every no question no question because I think that talking about history is important without us knowing our history then we can repeat what what happened already and the importance of documentation and in keeping track of everything and so that we don't make the same mistakes that we made before good evil whatever it is what it is but we definitely need to know where we came from so we can know where we're going right when you tell the story like in previous videos I seen you you don't really make it sound as if there was like huge amounts of violence going on like within your circle like that that wasn't it wasn't I didn't I didn't have to use violence just what why is that how do you avoid that well for one I had myself surrounded where I didn't really deal with a lot of outside people I knew the people I was dealing with you know I had raised my crew you know I taught my crew how to sell drugs I taught them how to work the triple beam I taught them what an ounce words were the half ounce so these guys had a kind of an affection for me that you can't get if you just walk on the street and you run into somebody a man I'm selling kilos and you know I'm behind kilos and you hook up that that's a scary relationship because you don't know really who this guy is but with my guys and I knew their mothers we date each other's house we rode bikes together we played football together we went to school together so it was more of a relationship outside of just the drugs the drugs was just kind of like me and biting them in on making some money right you ever watch Breaking Bad I didn't I heard about it best shows ever seen but kind of the principle dilemma of the show I sort of at the end of the show spoiler extend they're gonna forget this if you ever do get around to watching it is that basically just like they asked him ideals that he's like a schoolteacher and then he gets into some meth and he says the whole time has to take care of his family but then like at the end of the show he's basically forced to admit that it was about himself and it was about seeing what he was capable of and not wanting to live a normal life and it wasn't really just about feeding his family because if he wanted his feed his family he could have sold a little bit stopped it's like when you it's hard to stop just can't start and stop like that no like being an addict right you get addicted so so you're gonna feed your family today then tomorrow they gotta starve mmm no that's not how people think nest egg and then almost out but did you do but people almost never have that some control to actually stop when they should it's not alright it's alright it's it's good it gets more difficult because the bigger you get the easier it gets you know like at first I'm working when I first started I work a whole weekend maybe make 20 bucks hmm and then the next week I make 14 in the next week maybe I'll make 100 and now making a thousand a week so I quit now no let me get ten thousand and then you get ten thousand and now you start making ten thousand every week and then ten thousand every week so if I do hundred days that's a million bucks right let me get a million but you did want to leave like you you had that at least someone in your head right that you were always the intention remember saying I based my whole strategy on superfly mmm Superfly got out so I was gonna get out just like Superfly did but that number just kept getting higher you and I hear about you want to have yeah yeah well maybe one more house maybe a little bigger house maybe I get this girlfriend a house to get this car for for her or him and you know and you just keep finding people who need help was [ __ ] your addiction [Music] [Laughter] still to this day yeah I do just a dog [Laughter] to me the woman is the closest thing it is they have me right as often as I can yeah I wish I could go there more but are you are you the kind of guy who likes to you know receive his [ __ ] dosage through a relationship or do you feel like you can't you do try the relationship thing and then it just doesn't end up working no I don't mind having a relationship it's just women they they they they are so controlling you know they like to dominate their man but having that home all the time get all the money from you you know they want the money at the time at the same time in this is this hard to to give both are you still running around all the time or you are you the kind of guy who likes to spend time at home at this point in your life sometimes I'm on the road a lot I just come from friends Miami were you doing out there Fashion Week Oh with our first job would Rick still work yeah yeah yeah yeah I went down in style to clothes you know they had me styling their clothes and then we just did a party for me in Miami this past week before last and then this week we were down in a Atlanta for the Super Ball you know took our artists down and took my artist down and uh we were hitting clubs we had about ten clubs up you know turn them out you let him get on the microphone and shake them so I still I still do a lot on and that's hard you know for a woman not to have you at home and then I got little kids to I got two babies seven right we were you ever the type of drug dealer because not that they're selling drugs but like you see the the management company in Atlanta they just recently like posted like all these clips and videos of them in the strip club throwing out like allegedly like a million dollars or some [ __ ] like that the craziest amount money you can ever need to go for that no because they're going for the BAMF image right there that's definitely like who made that a thing that was kind of after your time okay no my money my money had penitentiary windowing it you always felt that way you knew I was going to really I was ready you didn't think there was a chance that you could get a good amount of money and get out well I didn't think I should really you think you deserved it no I didn't deserve a clean getaway no you know it just don't happen you know not in real life you know get away scot-free you know pay no price go to jail so so I was and I didn't really understand it until after I was sitting in prison and then I was sitting in I was like wow you used ice ask my girl like what you gonna do when I go to jail you gonna run you can come see me yeah you know send me something and uh and this was before I never had no cop activity so what came to me when I was in jail cuz I'm doing a lot of thinking now I got a lot of time to myself no yeah no radio so I'm just laying in the bed you know thinking and what came to me was the only reason that I was accident heard those questions is because I had put in my mind that I was going to drill huh self-consciously I've asked my girl that question I don't really think there's a very high chance of me going to jail but she told me she's like I'll give you two years like two years most the money lasts three months yeah if she says two years she probably means three months right yeah most of them bail out on you after the judge hit the hammer he hit the hammer Oh ten years maybe Dear John letters I can't buy so yeah at this point you're like oh yeah this is the other main thread that I wanted to get into um when do you do you remember when you become aware of Rick Ross the rapper yeah yeah locked up yeah I was in Texarkana I was in Texas I can I had about I had years to do well yeah I have right at three years to do because you know a little less than three because I miss my my statute of limitations by five days I could have won that lawsuit if I was in five days earlier really that's what the judge said because I did see that in the documentary and that just seems so brutal and just unfair man I wish I was wow I could see you know we had put everything there and we felt then that it was a solid case and and she could have you know because what she did it was her interpretation because the law says when does the public become aware that he's putting our music under his name so the general public she said was from one little radio station into Miami area had started playing that record and she used the date that that wreck that that radio station started playing the record has the data triggered to two years for the statute of limitation so she could have said oh well maybe it wasn't this radio station maybe that radio station wasn't big enough but 99.9 Jam's when they start playing it the public should have known then right that would have gave me enough time to uh to win my lawsuit and this must have been like the most bizarre feeling for you to be like wow somebody else is like literally using the [ __ ] nickname that I made up know my real name your real name right yeah he was using my whole government name all right I forgot that Ross was actually a last name as well yeah yeah yeah no you know freeway out of Philly he uses my nickname freeway but this guy was using my government name yeah it's kind of like almost unbelievable that any court in America wouldn't consider that a crime well you got a look at it you know from because I have a tendency to try to look at things from everybody point of view in and the way the court was looking at it was like this guy's a drug dealer he's just coming to earth hmm you know had no rights well this other guy's rapid about being a drug dealer the kind of degree no convictions no record yeah he's a good kid yeah he talks about bad [ __ ] I mean rap is weird like that took it's 50 cent just took another guy's name - yeah that's a bunch of that going on but you know the court should look at that you know they got one guy who was a real bad guy and another guy who you know pretends to be a bad guy but he's really not a bad guy who we're gonna go with you know who's telling the truth for you right and you know they they you know tenant or to a correctional officer it's crazy because it's like when people talk about sort of that time period of rick ross coming out when he exposed the correction officers photo and all that [ __ ] it's like when people talk about that they talk about that like that was really like a pivotal change in hip-hop history where all of a sudden you know this is a game we're being real used to be the number one thing oh yeah rick ross kind of changed that forever because it's like you know and it was just the fact that 50 and rick rosz beefed 50 exposed the [ __ ] correction officer photo and then it didn't matter and rick ross still kind of won the beef it's like that was pretty much unthinkable previously in hip-hop yeah and that was just sort of like this the sign that all of a sudden it's like oh this this is wrestling ya know no question and and you know what it really boils down to is who does the Machine want to win you know the Machine dictates who they're behind and you know they've been behind this guy man even when his records wasn't selling you know we looked at the numbers and the records wasn't selling but they kept pumping him out there pumping him out there you know trying to get people to to buy into his whole shenanigans and so you've never had any kind of interaction with him in any way we spoke on the phone when I first found out did that he was using my name ran him down you know had somebody find him for me and we talked on the phone and he was supposed to come to the prison and see me and and we were supposed to talk about business you know how I was supposed to work out but it never it never happened that would have been incredible but also probably like too weird to actually happen I were on his management side team I would probably be like yeah you probably shouldn't be doing business with this dude that you stole his name well you know I did to drink champs the night with nori really and nori was uh you know nori knows him well he says and he was like well maybe he thought she was gonna extort him you know he was just you know coming up with reasons why the guy wouldn't want to associate with the guy that he loves you know like if there's any guy in the world he loves it's me but do you think it was like real fandom that made him choose that name or was it just sort of like oh this is the name of a drug dealer and he didn't know that much about you and just did it anyway oh no he knew you know this guy he's smart he ain't no dummy I mean when you look at what he's done in the music business how he's meticulously I think that's the word Widow soil yeah picked different things at different times different names you know like one of his biggest songs I think I'm big Meech Larry Hoover so he did yeah he's the kind of guy who knew about all the big thing you know you know he studies so so so oh definitely he knew the value of and when he told me on the phone the value of having my name you know how before he started using my name nobody listened to him really but once he started using my name people here is perked because what happened is my name was a household name on underground and when they heard the name it automatically enjoyed the attention because it had been ingrained inside of them to know that this name had meaning inside to underground crazy crazy to think that he's actually still getting away with that yeah but does that motivate you to [ __ ] go out here and like a face out there as much as possible they almost mass you know yeah I got to become big and powerful just so that I know that I wasn't a flute and I also know that once that happens that it's gonna over shine what what he's done with the name and eventually he'll back away from the name you think that could potentially happen oh absolutely it will happen I mean he could be Ricky Rozay - he's already got other nicknames I mean you know sometimes people be hard I mean the og rose a so Rose a baby give me a day in your life like what time you waking up what's an average day we know at home most days I usually wake up around 4:30 5 o'clock and start talking to people on the east coast lining up my place so you get up early I get up early and I usually go to bed around I start wearing down after I finished talking on the East Coast I'll get up and go to the Auto Auction really yeah Bob Bailey yeah David brought me a couple of cars you know make some money so now I have something to blow when I when I hit the streets so you can flip cars on a daily basis on a regular basis this is something you just good at yeah I mean I'm good at whatever I wanted to really I believe that if anything that I want to do if you put me in front of it let me see it a few times I can become really really good at it maybe not the best but I can become really good at it where I can make some money and I'll do better than average people will do I don't care what it is it's cars the internet I'm just now I'm just now getting on the internet you know where I'm starting to talk to my my fans on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram sometimes I mess up you know it's funny though is that you could always tell like older dudes on Instagram and [ __ ] cuz like I don't have you know wack 100 yeah and I'm always seeing wack responding to people on Instagram and I want to be like whack you don't have to respond to him bro every comment [ __ ] you you don't know [ __ ] mother play just screaming on people yeah back a couple weeks ago ahead a fight oh really yeah yeah so man I'm supposed to hook up and try to put some stuff together talk to him about a Blueface mm you know getting ready to do his tour and I'm hoping I can get my artist on a couple of days what I mean matter-of-fact a holiday whack Saturday oh yeah interview him soon hopefully yeah do you um [ __ ] I lost it thinking about wack made me lose it no I was gonna say okay the books when did you start writing them and what's the the mission with each one well this book right here this is this is my autobiography here I wrote this one here when I was in prison and I didn't know if I was gonna get out of that you know my lawyer told me I wasn't gonna get out the prosecutor told me that I wouldn't be getting out the judge told me that that I wouldn't be getting out and and I didn't know if I was gonna get out of that shut up Boyce Watkins writing the recommendation on the back was pretty official yeah so what I did is I said you know what can you do what can you do for the world I mean what do you had off of the world now here you are in a six by twelve you only went out to go get your tray and shower you're done what can you do some come to me and say write a book you know teach the young people your lessons that you learned from from the drug game and put it in a book that's what I did that's how that one came about so it's kind of like my my letter to the world you know if if they want to know what it was like being in prison with a life sentence without the possibility of parole what I was going rooo pick up the blood this like does this mean a lot to you because when you look at it it makes you think about that chapter in your life that you'll absolutely that book means a lot to me me I mean I put a lot of blood sweat and tears into this whole this whole thing you know being in court seeing my mom break down you know I never saw my mom break down like she did in court when there he gave me the life sentence it was like just you know a knife had been right in their heart my mom was about mmm 78 79 you never seen your mom free again and that was the case she died while you're in prison no no no I know she died in my bedroom really yeah two years ago so she was lucky enough to see you change your life oh yeah yeah we got eight oh yeah I was there number one you know how you had they had that number one you know she know if she called me I was coming right and burn in prison took that away you know if she'd called I couldn't have came you know if she needed me I couldn't be there and and that was one of the hardest things about being in prison is that it takes away your your your dignity you know your your ability to to be important to to have substance you know I used to be part of someone's life that you love yeah you know I used to be in prison and I'm not used to wrestling with this and I was like wow you know when I was on the street my girls used to fight over me now they'd only write me a letter they won't come see me won't send me a picture won't bring my kids to see me what happened yeah and what I figured out is that I lost my substance I became an empty bottle something they had no value to him the reason that they were doing all that on the street because I had tremendous value to him and once you lose your value then you know people have a tendency to forget about you and throw you in the trash in and walk away that's crazy and that's like the weird thing about people who once they start to you know experience their life starts accelerating and all of a sudden they can afford close and the chains and all this [ __ ] is that like they let that begin to infect their brain this is who I am like this $10,000 outfit this is who I actually am so I really believe that this is me yeah and it's so not no and that's what I had to I had to go for real though I had to go all the way down yeah you know because as long as I still have money you know I was still on the phone my first once in prison my phone bill was like $8,000 a month you know it was ridiculous but as the money started to dwindle then I had to become more in tune with me and it took away all of the the costumes the the fantasies the make believes you know the people who only like you for what you had you know only around you because what you could do for them and I'm really high on that right now you know what people just coming around just to get what they can get you know they really don't like to be around you but they have to right and it's so unbelievable to think about it like from the perspective of being somebody who's locked up that once all that substance all that value all that fake value that you would create around yourself to like sustain your ego and everything and then when there's still people who do love you then you really get a perspective on what love is when you look at the way your mom felt about you oh you could have lost everything you could have been in a way worse position and still that wouldn't change for her no that's unconditional love my mom like I said she was like 77 and 78 years old and when I was in San Diego she would drive from LA to San Diego by herself and I was like mom don't do it no more you know because I felt it was so dangerous for her to be that all to be traveling by herself but that's the way she felt you know and I've been looking for that woman that feel the same way you know like mama right no matter what you do you alright with me yeah that's really thick how Mike the love of kids you yeah love is so so crazy you know we're gonna be going for ten weeks and come home and they jump on you yeah and you could feel like a lot of people love you but then at the of the day blood is really the thing that ties everything your kids are always gonna love you your mom's always gonna love you it's like everything else besides that feels pretty immaterial in comparison yeah but it shouldn't be though because if if you you know you got a buddy and you guys really really only care for each other and have each other's back then it should almost be the same as the mother's love and the kids love you know where you might die I'm here with you no matter what happened you know i'ma fall with you you know and that was one of the reasons that that when I was young I was kind of drawn to the gangs because those guys were willing to die for each other and it gives you a sense of identity that you can't really get a sense of protection a sense of a lot of things you can't really get anywhere else exactly you know because so many other people like like we said it's fake you know they don't be gone but you know with with the gang culture and that's why I so amazing to me is that these guys will literally die and go to prison with each other right but how do you speak to a kid who's involved in that world who's in a gang or selling drugs who's doing all that and how do you advise him on how to move along with his life because you know that he probably needs to be affiliated with those people in order to protect himself he probably needs to do crime in order to sustain what he's got going on how do you as someone who's seen it all done it all how do you speak to them well what we have to do is teach them how to take those same skills that that they've developed in the illegal world and develop that same mindset for legal business because business is business I don't care what it is it's it's really the same principles you know each product has a little different twist to it but it's really the same you know and if they are able to apply the street mentality to a business and then it's crazy I mean just look at me look at what I'm doing right now unbelievable you know some of the stuff that that I got going on I can hardly believe the opportunities that I've created for myself and I know now that I could have created these for myself all the time had I been focusing my energy toward those but isn't it crazy to think about it you know for a kid who's in a gang or who's in the street life or whatever like the two things that you could really do to create value around your name you know hurting somebody possibly taking somebody's life slides you know being in a gang or being you know sent to jail for a long period of time but you you you did the jail thing like in large part the reason why your name holds so much weight is because you did the exact things that you want to tell them not to do even though they know that the reason why you're a legend is in large part because you went out there yeah but but I know now that I could've did it the same way and we might have not been the way it is right now but but just think I did 20 I did eight years selling drugs mmm can I did 20 years in prison I just thank you told my 30 years now if I would have worked 30 years the way I work the way I say at McDonald's I would have like 30 McDonald's is right now it would have been slower but you would end up with something more sustainable exactly exactly and that's the point not that I wasn't able to turn it around and get the boat going right just because the boat did go crooked don't mean that everybody's both got to go crooked why why do you want to turn your boat that way when you are married you already know that you got to turn it this way you know and if you turn it that way that you can get the same results I believe that a person who starts out with no background know nothing can do what I'm doing maybe not as fast as I did it right now but in time I mean I've been home almost 10 years right now so the success that I'm having right now didn't come overnight and it didn't come because you know people would say and people tell me that all the time well you sold drugs and that's how you got your reputation but yes a lot of guys are sold drugs and they didn't write their reputation you know they don't have a documentary on Netflix you know I dream that documentary up when I was in prison when I was writing a book I thought also about it doing the documentary so a lot of that is me taking me what I learned let me say this here what I learned when I was growing up I was being molded by my environment my environment was shaping who I was who I was becoming once I went to prison and I started to understand that that I could control that person that I could dictate who that person became and and what went inside of his mind then I started taking control of that and I started to deliberately put inside of me what I thought was important mm-hmm is it hard for you to listen to rap music at this point in your career because there's so much like romanticizing romanticization of you know silly virtues yeah yeah I don't listen too much rap to me it's a joke you know with most of the guys you know talking about they sold drugs and parlayed it into a record career I don't believe it they don't talk about universalgiving are no checks and Warner Brothers you know giving them them checks so when I think about it that's pretty much how I how I look at it is that uh it's a bunch of make-believe you know it's a bunch of Hollywood you know guys driving Rolls Royces that was rented and loaned and the record label you know let him use the jury and you know they telling these young kids that they got it from selling drugs and and I think it's bogus and the kids are falling for it falling for it every time yeah but it's weird to be in that position of knowing better because you also know that if you make it perfectly clear that you by into the [ __ ] that that sort of draws a line in the sand between you and the next generation the fans the artists etc because a lot of those might be people that you don't necessarily want to alienate yourself from right no I don't I mean but at the end of the day you know I'm gonna be Who I am I'm gonna stand by my morals you know just because everybody else want to jump off a bridge you don't mean I'm gonna jump off you know and I don't care if you get mad at me because I'm not jumping you know that's your private if so at the end of the day I'm gonna stand my own ground they're not they're not paying my rent you know my rent is not based on if they like me or not or if they buy my book or you know buy a t-shirt or sweatshirt or whatever it's not based on that so at the end of the day I won't play to my own tune hmm your did any content with a Gary Vee composer do Gary B Monday really I was gonna ask if you had done any contact with him and I was also thinking I might you just remind me a lot of him in general I know Gary Vee he's turned himself into this lake image of being an entrepreneur and like hard work and everything and it's like he says in words what I think I think just like Gary you know like I am telling people you fake-ass entrepreneurs but what's crazy too is the like Gary did like a shoe drop around the corner I seen the line number one there's a line around the [ __ ] block and number two probably 80% of line is black people I'm thinking to my head I'm like how the [ __ ] did Gary Vee get so hot with this community Wow it's kind of amazing yeah yeah he's good though man oh he was good I just hope they listen to him oh yeah I don't know they were that excited about the case Swiss yeah or if they just wanted to be Gary you know party wanted me give mean if I were knew he was there I would have been here but yeah i go i go there monday fly to New York I'll be leaving out red on Sunday night I'll be joining Jim North Show in the morning 7 o'clock and then I hate Garriott for you're definitely somebody who understands the value of media appearances huh oh no doubt when you know I studied when I when I was in prison you know I I went to prison I was illiterate but before I got out I read over 300 books really and I'm reading again you know I said I wasn't gonna read any more books but right now I'm reading uh Gary's book crush it oh yeah yeah I've been reading that for a couple days I was reading it on the plane last night I just finished another book on Instagram and I finished one on Facebook about how to uh how to use the internet really properly and make some money cuz I've been a little bit of a hard transition it has it has because you know I've never been on internet before I mean I never know the computer before I got out of prison so for me coming home and then everybody got these little bitty phones when I left you know phones my phone was like this you know I remember my dad got out of prison in 96 and he was just saying that he was gonna learn all about the Internet the year is 2010 line and he can write emails about it yeah I got on everything man I'm wrong but you know I got some people just teaching me now I hired some people to teach me and my team they're helping me so I'm gonna enjoy it though you know I enjoy getting on there talking you know especially all those pretty women that you said that made me think about Gary was when you were saying the thing about the cars and how you feel like you could enter into any market and you could find some profit to be found because Gary like I mean people know in prison I had all the stamps oh it's President is where it's really going down at huh I had all the stamps was tuna fish I want all the tuna fish tuna whatever it is whatever the currency is I want a bunch of because this thing is always like go to a yard sale find something that for a dollar that you can sell for $3 and that's the beginning of your career because all of a sudden you're not just working for an hourly rate you're like flipping something and you can keep flipping bigger and bigger things and and you know in doing my studies I found out that the richest people in the history of mankind is people to sail hmm you have to be a seller you know if you can't sail you know you might do all right but if you want to be wealthy you gotta pay the sales stuff and it's true and I don't mind selling you know I don't mind accident for their money give me that money all the saltiest people on earth other people who have no sales skills yeah they're mad as [ __ ] because they're not the ones on the receiving end of the riches in society that's the background I guess Hey sure it's a freeway Rick [ __ ] woody what are you like pushing him in particular right now that you really want to promote well you know I think my book is definitely well you know both my books I just did another one this one just got released two weeks ago right and this is what gears crazy how I came about man the 21 keys of success and it's about a play on words there yeah monkeys just chugging it's about basically how a friend of mine was riding around with me and he was watching how I was using these principles to make money amazing and he put it down selling coke and the king of smoking weed didn't check out the book both my books you can get them at my website freeway Rick Ross calm also the documentary still on Netflix you know we still up there we gonna start shooting the movie in March oh really yeah we got our budget together you know we hope in March we'll be shootin look out for my artists you know hopefully you have my artists on your on your orders I got checking my with other names naaku now cool and you know always I miss everybody's name up and he got on me the other night in the dusty met at the club in a Atlanta he got on me about introducing the wrong person like 40 50 years into rap history so the names now have you know they got more complicated and night you know yeah kinds of issues at the end why you didn't come up with a common name like John back in the early days a rap that might have work could have been John now there's been too many yeah but he's real talented and we pushing him right now and we'll be going around the country with him so you know be on the lookout for us amazing alright well hey thanks a ton for coming on the show thanks to everybody who watched this please stay tuned because we're about to do an interview with Redman next believe it or not the way yeah the way I just said that made it sound like less of a big deal than it actually is so make sure you guys stay tuned thank you very much for ricky appreciate you man all right appreciate you Thank You G

Channel: No Jumper

Views: 110,897

Keywords: freeway ricky, freeway ricky interview, rick ross, rick ross interview, no jumper, freeway ricky podcast, kingpin

Id: rCX_kHvckzA

Length: 77min 19sec (4639 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 06 2019