Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZ1xDnuUM5Q
Oh, we're back. The Joe Rogan Experience podcast is brought to you by the Flesh Light. What is that? What's a flesh? It's a thing you [ __ ] It's a thing you [ __ ] Deal with that. It's a sex toy. Yeah, it's embarrassing. Yeah, but it works. If you're interested, go to joggan.net. Click on the link for the flashlight. Enter in the code name Rogan. Get yourself 15% off. All right. They they've been our sponsor since back in the day. Since the snowflakes in the background. If you um are interested, go and check it out. If not, that's cool, too. We're also sponsored by onit.com. O Ni T, makers of Alphabrain. Uh we also make uh a bunch of different supplements for uh health and wellness and for cognitive ability. What Alphabrain is is a neutropic. It's uh my favorite of all the supplements that I take. Um if you go to onit.com, o nit, it'll it'll explain everything, all the ingredients, what it does. Uh, don't just look at that though. Google neutropics, find out about the pros and cons if you're interested. But what they are basically is vitamin supplements that enhance the way your brain produces neurotransmitters. It enhances your brain's ability. It gives you all the building blocks for all the stuff that makes your brain work well. And uh I need some of that. I got you. I got you, Rick Ross. So um go to onit.com o nit and check it out. first the first 30 bottles if this is a controversial sort of uh supplement and we want to make it as as clean and easy as possible. So the first 30 bottles you buy is a 100% money back guarantee. You do not need to return the product. All you have to do is say that this stuff sucks. That's how confident we are in it that you're going to like it and you're going to keep ordering it. It's a staple in my diet. I take that [ __ ] every day. I just took three right before this meeting cuz Rick Ross is here and we're about to get busy. This is going to be interesting. Ladies and gentlemen, strap yourself in. Here we go. Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day. Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. Ladies, ladies and gentlemen, we're going into
the rabbit hole today. This is going to be an interesting one. This is going to be a weird one. We have here former aspiring tennis star. Is that true? You were aspiring tennis star. Wasp aspiring tennis star. Yeah. This is uh a man who uh eventually went on to become probably the most famous drug dealer in the history of Los Angeles. I would say that's as accurate as you can get. Yeah. Yeah. You're the most I mean if not the United States. Yeah. If not the United States. Not the biggest. It's right up there though. The most famous. Biggest but the most famous. Yeah. You got a dude stole your [ __ ] name. No, no, no. Like three people stole my name for sure. Three people. Yeah. Three people. Three rappers or three uh different drug dealers? Rappers. Uh um let me see. We know the guy who who's probably the most famous out of all of them is is William Roberts who goes by Rick Ross. Uh and he's the rapper that is a former corrections officer. Correctional officer. How hilarious is that? And they say he's the best gangster rapper ever. Better than Pac and Big E. Now that's nonsense. And then we got my man who's cool who I'm cool with, you know, and I don't mind him using parts of my name. It's Freeway out of Philly. And we also have a uh it was a Freeway Rich out of Kansas City that did pretty good in the Midwest. Um there also some guys right now out of uh Ohio who go by the name of the Freeway Boys. So that's four different uh groups uh that have taken my name and or my you know parts of my persona and and used it. Well, one of them got very famous though. Very famous right now. Yeah. That's fascinating. And you know what's really it's kind of weird. It's kind of weird too, you know, to to take somebody's name and identity and and claim it as
your own in their background. What's hilarious? I'm going to I'm going to send Brian a link of where uh he talked about it. He had he'd come on this dude's show and uh the guy asked him about it and uh his his reasoning response was so stupid. It was it's amazing the guy is successful is as successful as he is because he was like, you know, no, no, no, that happened like 10 years ago. I got that nickname. I wasn't even about that. Like the [ __ ] answer is that [ __ ] doesn't even mean when you know you know that the dude exists. You know I know. Okay. I'm a white standup comedian. I know who Freeway Ricky Ross is. You don't know. And you're a [ __ ] corrections officer who became a rapper and you're in that world and you don't know who Rick Ross is and you just happen to have his [ __ ] name. Well, you know the guy the guy one thing I got to get a guy is he's powerful. He done put some moves together now. Yeah, that he's getting courts and everybody to do what he wants him to do. So, whatever he's doing, he's damn good at it. I mean, you know, to have the judge to rule uh in in his favor the other day was like really really ironic to me. I could not believe that somebody could say that if somebody steal something from you, no matter how long it is that it takes you before you catch them and can can bring them uh uh uh to the jurisdiction's uh attention, how could they say that the statute of limitations have ran out? That was just so crazy to me. How do you have a statute of limitations on your name? That's what I was saying. And I mean, if somebody steals something from you, I mean, and it takes you 10 years to catch them with it, and you catch them with it, it has all the all the makings on it that it's yours. How could you not be made to give it back? You know what I'm saying? You saying, "Oh, well, he had it 10 years, so now it's his." Well, what's really crazy is that it's in the most I mean, rap, the world of rap is supposed to be the most legitimate world ever. Like, you can't get caught with any [ __ ] You can't get caught faking anything. If you get caught faking anything, people will turn on you. It used to be like that. I mean,
it used to be like that. If you bit a lyric, if you bit somebody's rhyme or lyric and and you were done. Yeah. You know, remember Nelly Vanelli? I mean, those guys last like Billy Vanilli. Nelly Vanelli. Yeah. Yeah. Well, those guys weren't really rappers though, you know. But I mean, Rick, but it was still during the time of of of of genuine real. Yes. And now I think that that the time has changed so much. It's it's not about real anymore. It's it's about uh faking it, you know. Well, it's once someone gets popular enough that they bypass the underground hardcore fans and they make it into the mainstream and then they become a part of pop culture like this. Every day I'm hustling that just got into the mainstream culture because the the words in between that they're not good. It's not he's not a good rapper. It's that everyday I'm hustling is just so good. You know, when you hear that in a club, you're like, "Damn, that's good." You know, it's just such a good hook that that made him. I mean, that's where it all took off from. Exactly. And you don't And then you have Universal behind you pushing. You know, they start pushing stuff down our kids throat, you know, and and next thing you know, they're taking it. That's fascinating. So, he's got your name now. So, now it's legal that he's got your name. Well, why wouldn't he use his own [ __ ] name? Rick Ross is just a name. You know what I mean? It's not like star child beyond the grave. You know what I mean? You don't have like some crazy [ __ ] name. You know what I mean? I mean, it's What's his name? His real name. Uh, William Roberts. What's What's wrong with Bill Roberts? I don't know. How about Bill Roberts? Bill Roberts. I'm ready to rap it. Rick Ross. I mean, if Rick Ross sounds like a guy who sells you real estate, you you'd be like on one of those uh those billboards that they have on the bus
stops. You know, Rick Ross, a big smile on your face. If my mom would have named me William Roberts, my name would be William Roberts. Yeah. Yeah. You'd be free Will Roberts. Exactly. What's wrong with that? talking about every day I'm hustling. Well, you know, hey man, we can't hear you in the background. This ain't no microphone. Even Even that uh u every day I'm hustling is something that I had I used to say. He got that out of a book that uh Gary Webb wrote called Dark Alliance. And you know, I was telling Gary that you I'm hustling every day. So he took that and turned into a song. So I mean, you know, I don't know what it is with this guy. You know, he tattooed my name on his hand. That's so strange. I mean, I'm a little That's so strange. It's a little weird, you know. And he used to be a corrections officer, which is really [ __ ] up because to become a corrections officer, they got to do a background check on you. Oh, man. They're going to make sure you're not a felon. Squeaky clean. Yeah. You can't you can't be this gangster dude and be a [ __ ] guy who is a corrections officer. We should get his application and read what it says. What it takes to be a correctional officer. All the uh criteria. Yeah. How about the pictures of him with the outfit on? You've seen that? I saw this shit's ridiculous. I saw it with the smooth face. What's really [ __ ] up is there's a video of him uh an old video of him and you're on the video. You're on the beginning of it and then he comes out like he knew who the [ __ ] you were. He put you in his video, right? Yeah, but he said he didn't know who I was under oath, too. How do you not bring that video in and just stick that in his face and it should be case closed? Well, the judge didn't want to see that. Whoa. So, is the judge just getting bribed? It must be. I mean, you know, has to be.
It looks funny to me. How can you How could you? That has to be bribery. 100%. That that judge should be in jail. There's no There's no doubt about it. That's your [ __ ] name, man. That's your [ __ ] name. I mean, and and to let this guy come in court and say that he never heard of he never heard of me, you know? That's hilarious. And how he invented the name, you know, was like, wow. You know, he gave us some elaborate story. Well, how he invented When I heard him on this video, it was so stupid. He was like, no, the name came about like 10 years ago. like what does that mean? was he it was like a non-answer to the question and he was just and then he tried to like beep past it the question just talk about how people just like to talk a lot of [ __ ] and start a lot of [ __ ] I'm like what yeah he like to bolo he liked to bolo people you know when he come in and you know like either you going to do the interview or you ain't going to do the interview I ain't going to talk about this you know I'm going to talk about what I want to talk about oh I see so he doesn't just come in and just have a conversation with you he comes in like with a specific set of rules exactly I I think most of his interviews are rehearsed and written down, you know, the way I mean the way they seem like to me, you know. I mean, everything about this guy, you know, is is is suspect. You know, when I was in jail, somebody wrote me a letter and said, "Hey, his beard is fake." Could you imagine you catch a black glue black cotton balls on his face? Yeah. This chick wrote me and said, "Oh, his beard is fake, too." I mean, you know, it's just so much stuff, you know, you hear and people, you know, shooting your messages and and and all kind of stuff like that there, man. Uh, matter of fact, a couple weeks ago, I get a call and it was a guy that was in jail while he was a correctional officer. You should hear the story. You should hear the story this guy had to say. What did he have to say? What did he say? Oh, man. He said this guy was one of the
worst CEOs that you could be. You know, he was one that See, a CO really doesn't have power. He has to go to his boss and tell his boss on you. So he said that this guy was running around the sale sneaking trying to hear what they talking about and if they shooting dice, he'd run up and tell his boss, "Hey, they down there shooting dice, boss. Let's go get him." Really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the kind of guy they use him for. And then like when they do raids, you know, when they raid your sale, he would be the first one they push in, you know, the big the big fat guy, you know, cuz everybody be kind of scared of the big fat guy. So they would all get behind him and shove him up in the sale. So all this big blob of meat has come at you, you know. So he was there battering ram. Yeah. Oh, that's hilarious. Wow. That's It's so [ __ ] up that that guy got legitimate that all of a sudden he's a legit rap star, man. It's fascinating. It's fascinating how that snuck by, you know. Well, you know, u our people just let him slide him on in there on us, you know, and and slowly and slowly, uh, he was accepted, you know. It seems like that can't last. It seems like, you know, rappers have a short shelf life anyway. A lot of them, I mean, there's dudes like Jay-Z and Nas that will just stick around just because they're so talented, you can't stop them. But a lot of rappers, they they they come for a little while and they I got to think this is this is going to take wind out of his sail eventually. Well, I don't know. You know, when when when those people put when the labels put that money behind you and and you become they their money cy, you know, then they have a sense of of of just shoving you down everybody's throat, you know, keeping you on the radio. And anything people hear on the radio, you know, they believe it, right? Once they can get money out of you, they know they can keep getting money out of you. So, they just use you as a cow. They just use you as a cow. So, they keep milking you and keep milking you and and it's going to be up to the people to say, "You know what? We don't care how many times you shove this guy
in our face. We're not buying him." Yeah. Yeah. You know, we know he's a correctional officer. We know he never sold drugs. We know he's a fake. And we know he sold he stole Rick Ross' name. Yeah. He's got your name tattooed on his body. And we want him to give it back. You know what I'm saying? That's what the streets need to tell him. You know, give Rick back his [ __ ] name. Yeah. Give him back his [ __ ] name, [ __ ] If it makes you feel any better, he was on a TV show and he left his hat there and um our friend Tom Sigura stole his hat. Uh so, and he wears it every every day. Tommy. Oh, that's hilarious. That's beautiful. Yeah, Tommy was excited that that I'm going to talk to you. He's a stand-up comedian, good friend of mine. Now, your story is you were an aspiring tennis star and then you went on to make somewhere in the neighborhood roughly of like $600 million from selling crack in Los Angeles. Yeah. In like two years, I did that. That was my last two years. I don't know. God, before that, I made a lot of money before those two years. What's really crazy is that this all has a connection not just to Los Angeles, but to Ronald Reagan and Oliver North and the Contras in Nicaragua. This is what a lot of people don't know. There's crazy conspiracy theories that people always talking about. Oh man, the CIA sells drugs and and then you know uh Lee Harvey Oswald didn't act alone and we never landed on the moon. And when you talk about conspiracies, people go, what the [ __ ] are you talking about, you crazy [ __ ] You really believe the CIA sold drugs? Well, [ __ ] yeah, they did. Not only did they sell drugs, Michael Roupert exposed it when the CIA director tried to come to Watts and have this big meaning to try to prove I remember that. I remember that. I saw Michael Roupert's a bad [ __ ] I saw it on Night Line. Uh uh I mean, even in their own investigation though, the CIA admitted that they knew about it, that their operatives were selling
drugs. Now they did this to fund the Contras because the Congress had cut off funding. Absolutely. So they needed money to fund the Contra war against the Sandinistas who were backed by the Russians, right? And this was during the Cold War and they were supposedly worried that the Russians were going to take over Nicaragua. Is that the that was that the idea? That that was what they feared. Uh you know, I read a couple books on it after uh after I found out after the story broke. I wanted to know more about what I was involved in. And what they feared is that the sanistas basically Russia had gave the sanas like $100 million. And Congress had cut off all monies to the Contress. So they had to figure out a way to to to raise this money to defeat this army that had $100 million. You know, back then I guess $100 million probably would be equivalent to a billion dollars right now today. So they were looking for ways to to to raise this money. So, what they decided to do was sell weapons to Iran, convert that money back to Nicaragua to these guys, and these guys could take that money and go and buy drugs. That way, it wouldn't leave a paper trail back to the US. And and that's basically what they did. And that's what got exposed with the uh the Oliver North trial. And that's when Ronald Reagan had to get on TV and said he couldn't remember. Yeah. He couldn't remember whether or not they sold arms to people who hate us. And then you know too in the Carrie investigations they told him to stop right at the drugs when they started to go into the part about the the the trafficking in the cocaine. They they had it stopped the hearings. Why did they have the hearing stopped right then? I don't know. Just too too inflammatory problematic. Guess I guess. So my my uh documentary is going to explore that. My uh producing director for my documentary was sitting there in in the Senate hearings. So, he's bringing all those tapes and we're gonna When is this documentary gonna come out? This documentary should be out in like
November of next year. We hoping. Now, did you find out about this connection between the Contras and the Senate and all this while you were in jail? Yes. I was in jail was in 96. So, you had no idea about the CIA connection? No, I didn't care, man. I was just trying to make money, you know. I was a a kid in South Central and and I was illiterate. I couldn't read, couldn't write. Uh, and I found out that, you know, my tennis career was basically over because I couldn't go to college. There was no way I was going to college. So, where were you playing tennis? You like tournaments and stuff? Yeah, I played tournaments, Southern California tournaments. And, you know, when you play those tournaments, you don't have to turn in your report card. You know, you just go out and play. They don't ask you that. I also played high school tennis. And, uh, I had dreams of going to college and playing college tennis. And all that was derailed uh, you know, when it was discovered that I couldn't read or write. Wow. So, how did you get through school if you couldn't read or write? They just passed you. Yeah, man. You know, teachers, they don't really care about if you getting your education or not. And for sure at that time, and by me being a a a good student, I guess they just kind of like felt they were doing me a favor by just letting me get through, you know? But being a good student, how can you be a good student if you can't read or write? Well, I didn't cause many problems, you know. I see what you're saying. So, you were just dealing with a wild bunch of kids. And you were a nice guy, right? Sit in my seat, you know, probably go to sleep in class most of the time, you know. Wow. And uh don't cause a teacher no problems. You know, if it was time for me to read, I would uh go to the principal office, get my squats for being bad in class that day, and you know, the next day I come back and go back to sleep. Wow. Isn't it amazing that the standards
are so low that all you have to do to be a good student is is not be crazy and a problem? Exactly. You don't have to participate at all. That's amazing. And I never really participated in class, you know, none that I can remember. Well, I've always said that the number one problem with this country for sure is that we don't care about other people's kids. We don't care about how other people's kids are growing up. We don't care if it's not your kid that's that's illiterate. If not, it's not your kid that's growing up without a father. It's not your kid who's growing up in poverty, doesn't know what their next meal is, you don't give a [ __ ] But meanwhile, you give a [ __ ] about what's happening in another part of the world. You know, freedom of Afghanistan, all this nutty [ __ ] that went on in Iraq. Our real war is with the our own people that we have to live with, our own national community. And our national community has six spots. And these six spots are the ghettos. And it's real simple. If you're you're you get an unlucky roll of the dice and you're born in that six spot. Well, guess what? You're [ __ ] You're [ __ ] And you got to figure out a way out of that somehow or another. But the odds are long against you. Long against you. And that's a real travesty. We as human beings concentrate on some [ __ ] that's going on in another part of the world that's not even connected to us and we don't concentrate on people that we're going to [ __ ] come in contact with and spending billions. Yeah. Spending more than that. Trillions. And we're not concentrating on the people that we're really going to come in contact with. The people that are going to grow up and be a problem with everybody they interact with because their life is [ __ ] from the get-go and be a problem for your kids. You know, just imagine, you know, in a few years, your kid is walking down the street and he run into one of these kids that that didn't get it, you know, and you get robbed there. Your situation is so crazy. It's so hard to wrap your head around, you know, that you you were involved. You
were like a part of this gigantic machine and you didn't even know about it. You just would you just were trying to sell crack, make some money. They gave me a way out, you know. Uh you look at how did it start? How' I start selling? Yeah. Oh, man. I was sitting on my porch one day and I was so broke and one of my big homies called me. He said, "Man, I got the new thing." I said, "Huh?" He said, "Man, come over here right now." So, I jumped in my car. I had an old 66 Chevrolet. I threw a dollar worth of gas in there and I drove to his house. That might have been my last dollar, right? Wow. I'm like, "Wow, I put my last dollar in the tank. I'm through now." So, when I get to his house, he uh he he laid it out, you know, it was cocaine, you know, and he was like, "Man, this is a new thing." And I saw the movie Superfly, and I'm like, "Wow, Superfly, that's me, you know, and I'd always wanted when I saw Superfly, man, I just love that movie, you know, when when I It's hilarious now. You try watching it now, it's kind of hilarious." Yeah. Yeah. I I might have to do that. You know, when I when I when I finally bought my first VCR, you know, just the way they're dressed, the way they talk. He goes, "My hall, my vines." He goes, "This is all I ever wanted in life. My hall, my vines. A white woman like you." And you know, "My hall." Like that's what these they call their car. My vines was his clothes. You know, it's like the nicknames were hilarious. The ones that didn't stick. I haven't watched that since like 82 or something, man. Wow. Well, when I bought my first VCR, man, that was the first one I had. I threw it right up in there. Whoop. Wow. Okay. So, so you you go over your friend's house. He's got it all. Now, this is crack or this is not cocaine or crack. It's powder, right? But uh uh he's cooking it in the rock at that time. Now, who who taught everybody to cook it? How the [ __ ] did that come about?
Cuz that to me is a a massive mystery that someone figured out how to take cocaine and turn it into a more addictive. It was already guys cooking it when I started, right? But it was only a few of them. But is freebase is different than crack, right? Yeah, freebase. Like Richard Prior had a freebase, but it's still the same product. They were cook but they were just taking Coke and cooking it. How were they doing it? Yeah, they you cooked it with ether. Oh. Which was a much more difficult process. But it's still the same product technically. The only difference is that uh with with freebase I mean with with with with what they call crack. Cuz we didn't call it crack. We called it ready rock. Ready rock. Yeah. We call it ready rock. The difference is with Ready Rock is you use baking soda. Now, what I did is in my neighborhood, there's three guys that could cook it. These guys were very expensive, very, very expensive to cook it. So, what I did is once I learned how to cook it from these guys, cuz I kept watching them do it over and over and over again, and they keep charging me to cook three grams, they might charge you $175. So, I keep paying. Was it how was three three grams cost us? Like what is it when you sell back then? Three grams back then three grams would have been about $900. So out of $900, you pay him 175 bucks. It's pretty pricey. It was It was pricey, but what they did, it took them 10 minutes, 15 minutes, you know. Yeah. I mean, you think getting the Coke is the hard part. That's the really hard part. But then you got to cook it up. So, you know, that was another part. But once I learned how to do it, what I did is I just started showing all my little friends how to do it, you know. So that became like a job for them. They could just cook and make, you know, what other guys were charging 175, they could charge 125 and and and you know, and just sort of market up.
But it's weird that Coke is expensive, but crack is not. Not true. That's a misconception. It is a misconception. Big misconception. Crack is expensive. There is no crack without Coke, right? So if you took a Kia Coke and you cooked it in the crack, the price don't drop. So what what is the benefit? Price goes up. The price goes up. You make more money. Do you need less to get high? Is that what it is? No. No. No. It it it don't really have anything to do with the high. See, if you spend 40,000 for a key of powder, you still got to get at least 40,000 for the key of cooked, right? But people think that it's cheaper. There's some misconception that they have put in people mind that that rock is cheaper. No, no, no, no, no, no. It's still the same Kia of cocaine. You still have to get your money back out of it. If you spend 40,000, you still got to sell that rock for 40,000. So, what is the benefit of turning it into rock then? They can smoke it. Yeah. Is that better? It's a better high, they say, than than than smoking powder. Is it uh do you need less of it to get high that way? Uh, no. Is that so? So, there's no benefit financially going the way of crack opposed to coke if you're trying to get [ __ ] up. If you take powder and put on that pipe, it's going to burn different. So, it turns the pipe all black and and and gooey. Uh, but rock, it took all the impurities out of the coke. So, now you're just smoking pure cocaine and and and they like that better. And that's what the baking soda That's where the baking soda comes from. That's what the baking soda did. And that pulls the impurities out. Is that how it works? Right. It cooked all the impurities out of it and and and turned it into a gel. Now you you you meet this guy, you go over his house, he's got the Coke, and you know, you decide, all right, this is it. This is what I'm going to do. I'm
going to be Superfly now. Did a light bulb go off in your head? No, I didn't believe him, man. Really? He showed me something was about the size of a um one of those little match heads and told me it was worth $50. It's my boy, too, though. You know, it's my boy, right? If it had been somebody else, I never would have I wouldn't even touched it. But this was my boy telling me this. He said, "Man, that's worth $50." I'm like, "Wow, come on, Mike. Stop it." I mean, $50, man. The police would never catch me with that. You know, I'm talking about something so small you you could barely see it. You know, I could put it in my fingernails, right? And he telling me that's worth $50 and and I just spent my last uh uh uh dollar on gas, and now he telling me that this little thing is worth 50, so I can make my money back. was $40 and he gave it to me. He'll take it and go, "Wow." So, uh, you know, I go and I'm going around trying to figure out was it really Coke? You know, so I'm going to everybody and asking and asking and nobody really knew what it was. What year was this? 79, end of 79, beginning of 80. Now, in the 80s, for people who don't know, I uh I was living in Boston at the time, and uh I remember when crack hit, and it was it was like a wave of crime just took over. It was weird. It was like a a real noticeable increase in crime once crack had become a part of the culture. Well, you know what? When when when people start smoking cocaine, they going to do whatever they can to to keep that high going, you know, beg, steal, borrow, you know. I mean, it it was something about it where they said was so joyful that you never wanted to stop. Wow. Some some guys used to say it was the best sensation that they had ever had before. And you never [ __ ] with it? I tried it about one week maybe week and a half for a whole week. Yeah. Damn. Was this in the be the what point? In the beginning. Yeah. In the beginning
I I caught myself early. You know I I went through a phase where you know we thought we had came up on some money and then you know I thought I was rich. I had about 10,000 and then all my friends were like man come on let's smoke something in weed. Wow. And I and the good thing though I had never smoked weed before in my life. That's a good thing. It was at that time. Yeah. So that that probably what helped save me from becoming a an an addict. So that you weren't used to smoking things, right? I wasn't used to smoking. I was a tennis player, you know. Right. Right. Right. You were healthy. I was healthy. So when I started smoking, you know, started putting lacing in the weed and and smoking it and I looked up my money was like, "Wow, man. You you had 10,000. You down to like 500 now." Wow. Yeah. That quick? That quick? It was going quick. How'd you stop? Was it hard? Quit. No. No. I just quit. I said, "Man, this ain't what you went into the game for." But was it difficult physically? Did you have a withdrawal symptoms? Withdrawals? Uh-uh. No. Well, you have a strong mind. You probably pulled yourself a week, you know. Yeah. I think that's all it takes. I I did I did it for about a week and I never felt the addiction. Like I did the baking soda thing where How often did you do it? Uh for that week I probably did it twice, three times. Two times a day. No, no, no. I mean, three times three times for the whole week, but I mean, I was also doing a lot of cocaine at that point and and I never got I never liked the crack. Is it a some people get addicted, some people don't? Is it one of those? Well, you know, you got to you got to pull yourself and you got to find a reason why you want to quit, right? See, some people, you know, like I got an uncle, he's been getting high since
the day I started. And you know what he told me? What? I don't want to quit. Wow. What I'm going to quit for? [Laughter] We had a friend who was a comedian who was a heroin addict who uh wound up dying. Mitch Hedber, very funny guy. Really, really funny dude. And they tried to stop him a few times. He's like, "Bitch, I ain't stopping shit." That was his attitude. He's like, "This is me. I like this." I mean, a person should be allowed to do whatever it is with their life. Yeah. As long as they don't hurt anybody else or infringe on your rights that they want to do. I agree 100%. Now, you're you're sitting there. You're How old were you when this happened? When I started? 1920. 1920. So you're 1920. You get started in it and then how do you go about going from that to everything branching out to you being the biggest most famous guy. It was it was I guess you would say like an evolution, you know, learning process. You know, the first time I learned that first piece of cocaine I got, I got beat out of it. Another one of my big homies beat me out of it, you know, told me, "Let let him test it. Let him smoke it." And, you know, wasn't big as a match head. So, he cut it in half and he smoked a piece of it and he was like, "Oh, that's the way they used to do, you know, when they smoke it and smack their lips and tastes all right. Let me I need another piece though to make sure it's good. You don't want to go out there and sell it nothing ain't right." Chipped it again and and the whole thing was gone. And there was a little teeny weeny piece left and he's like, "Man, I'm going to go and smoke that too and then I'll just pay you Friday." Pay you Fridays. Never happened. Never ever has it. Hamburger today. Never. It ne I never got that 50. Never. You probably never will. Those those I'll pay you Friday guys. They never pay. They don't.
So that was my uh uh business in the cocaine business. So right away you went, "Okay, I got to be a little more prudent with my [ __ ] my resources here." It started and ended right there. Right. I felt like my career was over cuz I How was I going to go back to Mike and tell him, "My man, I'm gonna go tell my man, man, I ain't got the $50, man." Wow. I want to reup, but I don't have the 50. But, uh, what happened is is that guy who beat me out to 50 and he taught me another lesson. He come right back that day with somebody that won $100. See, like with with with with with with people who use if they owe you, then they'll come when they'll bring somebody else with them and say, "Oh, man. This ain't my money. This his money." Ah, that's hilarious. So, he came back with somebody wanted to buy $100 worth. And uh I called my man. I said, "Man, I ain't got your 50, but uh somebody else want to buy $100 worth. You want it?" And and he shot over there, served him that. And next thing you know, this guy who who beat me out the 50 kept bringing person after person after person. And next thing I know, I'm making $200 a day, $300 a day, but now I'm giving all the money to my man. And uh you know, one day I was just like, man, I'm going in business for myself. So, how did you get a distributor? Well, it started just like that. I started off just getting it from him. Mhm. And then uh I've been uh talking about going to Venice Skill Center to uh do a postery and me and this uh teacher there that taught the class had become really really good friends. We played tennis together and um I just stopped going around him cuz I spent all my time selling coke. And uh one day I go down, you know, just to see him because this was my man and I hadn't seen him. And I said, "Man, uh how you doing?" He's like, "Man, where you been, man?" I was like, "Man, you don't want to know where I've been, right?" So, um, I went on and told him, I was like, "Man, I've been I've been selling coke, you know, this what I'm doing now." He's like, "What?" He's like, "All right, my man."
Wow. So, he had a whole different attitude than I thought he was going to have. But, you know, he was fly and, you know, I used to like his little jewelry and he he drove a brand new Cadillac and all that, right? So he said, "Man, come by the house." So I go by the house, man. And he lay it all out. He's like, "Man, you think I got this house, this Cadillac, these clothes, and like this here on a teacher salary? No way." He said, "Man, I traveled the world." He said, "I should sell coke, but I just backed up for a while." Whoa. So, uh, it's hard to do that, right? He had the Nicaraguan connection. Yeah. You got to be really, really strong to back up without going to prison or getting killed. It's very few people do, right? Very few do. I I don't know. I don't know not one person that just quit on their own, I don't think, without going to prison. Wow, that's amazing. So So this guy gets you the Nicaraguan connection. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He called his guy up, man. And um his guy was like, I'm from Nicaragua, you know, spoke broken English and gave me some prices, man. And it was like all love. I was like, man, I'm f to be rich. Wow. So, um, are you familiar with, uh, how they got it into the country or at the time, did you know how they were getting into the country? No, I didn't keep I was My mind wasn't that big, you know. You were 20. I'm 20 years old. Never had nothing. Right. You know, I hadn't had I had never had $1,000 before I started selling coke. I don't know if I had ever had $500. You know what I'm saying? Right. Right. Right. So, um, I'm just thankful that I'm in this position. I ain't asking no questions. You know what I'm saying? I'm like Superfly. has no questions. As long as the man let you be the man, leave it alone, you know, and and that's the way I was. That was the attitude I had. I was just just going along with the process. Wow. That's a that that's got to be a crazy position to be in, man. To all of a sudden it starts taking off and you
see it and then you're just rolling in this money. I mean, it really is like a movie, right? Did it feel like a movie to you? Like all of a sudden you go from being broke to just balling. It was like a dream, you know? you you feeling like, you know, finally uh uh God had recognized you. You know, all this time all this time you had been ignored by God and now all of a sudden, you know, all the things that you had prayed for and and hope would happen in your life had just taken place. Wow. That's a crazy way to put that God had recognized you. That's how I felt, you know, honest, you know, I felt that that it was a blessing from God that uh that I've been put in that position. And and now, you know, my family wouldn't have no more hungry nights and we wouldn't be worried about the lights getting cut off, the gas, and you know, those roaches and rats wasn't going to be running through the house no more cuz I was going to get some some uh rat traps, some rat traps and get rid of them, you know, and and we was going to patch them hoes up in the in the cabinets and, you know, all the things that that I regretted when I was a kid, you know, standing in line with food stamps, all that was over with. Did you learn how to read at this time? No, man. And I didn't learn how to read till I went to prison. Wow. That's amazing. That's amazing. I was forced to learn how to read. What did you do with the money? Like, how'd you bank, man? I had big safes. I had safes. U they come out the Queen Mary weigh 2500 lb. One time they stole my safe out my house. I said, "They'll never do that again." And this dude put me up on these safes that they took like a little train track to ring it through and Wow. They wasn't moving that be a professional safe mover to move them up out your house. When they stole the safe out of your house, how much was in the safe? And I think I think one time they got like maybe 180,000 160,000. Wow. In cash in a safe and you just weren't home or something. They knew when you were leaving. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They knew. U you probably was an inside job. You know,
you know how that you know how that go. One of your family members open the door and let them in. Isn't that crazy? That's It's crazy to think about, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. So, so then you got a big giant safe and you kept it all in. You mean you you had to be locked down at all times if you had that kind of cash around. You're not dealing with banks at all like Oh, no. No, no, no. I didn't go to no bank, man. Wow. You know, my mom, she used to take uh cuz I had a couple of properties in my name and so my mom, I used to let her go and collect all the rents, my section 8 checks. And uh she was used to just throw them in the bank cuz I pay the mortgages and stuff out out my dope money. And uh the the banker used to say, "Tell your son to come in and meet us." He's doing he's doing pretty good in real estate. Wow. That's hilarious. So, did you come up with a bunch of businesses to sort of mask your money? Yeah, I had I had quite I had um I had a custom tire wheel shop, car wash, shoe store, beauty salon, junkyard, motel, uh bought a old theater, and I had apartment buildings all over the place. I used to build apartment buildings. That was like one of my hobbies. Did you have to show how you got the money to buy any of these businesses or start these businesses? I figured out how to launder, you know, people taught me how to launder the money, right? how you go to the bank and then you you get the cashier's checks and you know so so we figured you know we figured it out how to get around it now all this time you couldn't read no that's amazing so when you went into the banks and fill out the paperwork how did you do that well I would just have somebody else to do it for me you know like if I'm buying a piece of property the real estate agent would do most of the work now I've had times where they told me one thing and it wasn't what it was you know so so those are the chances that you take when you can't read or write wow One time I had a building that I
bought and they told me that the note was going to be 3,000 a month and the note turned out to be 6,200 a month. So it cost me like 3,200 a month because I couldn't read the contract. Wow. So I mean it's costly when you don't know how to read. That's incredible that you accomplished so much without learning how to read. That's that's amazing. Well, you know what what what I felt is that I had developed a sense of people, you know, where I could feel good people and bad people just just just sensing them who who to who to deal with and who not to deal with. And you know, you make some mistakes, but you know, overall, I think that uh you know, I did all right with with some of them. So, as long as you were making them money, everybody was making money, everybody was happy. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I paid for Anita Baker's first album, too. Wow. Seriously. Wow. That's awesome. Yeah, I financed Beverly Glenn Music. Uh Otis Smith, who was the owner of the label, Rest in Peace, uh he used to take care of me when I played tennis, you know, buy me tennis shoes and rackets. And so when I came up, I ran into him one day and he wasn't doing all that well. So, you know, return the favor. Oh, wow. That's beautiful. But he got his 10fold, you know. Yeah. And they say you get a 10fold. He used to buy me a tennis shoes and rackets. I get him 600,000. Wow. So, you know, sometimes you do a good deed, they come back to you. Might have be, you know, took took we 10, 15 years. But So, how did it all come apart, man? It was coming apart from the beginning right away. It was just crazy. Yeah. What wind up happening is, you know, they created this task force called the Freeway Task Force. Yeah. That was these group of officers just to go after you. Yeah. cuz you were Freeway Ricky Ross. Yeah. Yeah. They said that my name was ringing so much downtown that city hall had a special meeting. Wow.
They said, "Who is this guy in South Central making all this money that everybody in South Cuz what I found out is when I finally got arrested is that not the people wasn't really telling on me, right, to get me in trouble. They was bragging about me. Yeah, the homeboy Rick, he he millionaire. He got this. He got that. He running the whole hood, you know. So, this is creating a hysteria downtown and they like, "Well, who is this guy? Why is everybody talking about him?" And what I found out, these guys are in jail talking about me, too. You know, like they sitting in holding tanks and and they having conversations about Freeway Rick. And so, the guards are hearing this and they going report it and so now everybody wants to know, "No, who is this guy?" Imagine if it was Rick Ross, the fake Rick Ross who was hearing about the real Rick Ross and went and reported you. Imagine we find that [ __ ] out. Hey, could you imagine? I mean, that's a goddamn connection right there. We might have [ __ ] found the magic bullet. [Music] Ah, that's hilarious. That's hilarious. So, they hear about you through legend. You're just you just become Now, are you aware of how famous you are at this time? Oh, I'm in a shell. See, my guys know that they ain't You can't talk about me, right? And you talk about me to your girls and nobody. You tell them what? None of my business. If they ain't in our business, they don't even know our business. But it it wind up getting past the line, you know, when you got that line, but it jumped over that line and everybody knew. Yeah. It became public. And you had no idea. I had no idea it was public. You thought you were just like like a cat hiding under the couch and you think you're hidden but your tail's poking out. You know, they think you can't see him. You're like, "Bitch, I see you." Yeah. You you mine. You all mine. So, and that's what I was living under. I was living under that illusion that that nobody knew who I was because I didn't
drive a fancy cars. You know, I could walk in a restaurant, nobody would spot me. Right. Right. They wouldn't be pointing, "Oh, that go wreck over there." So, you kept it low key. You stayed in the same house. Uh, you know, I had houses all over. You have a bunch of houses. Bunch of houses. But they wasn't, you know, I mid-level. Didn't get you get in mansions. Nothing crazy. Pasadena estates with giant lawns and fountains and [ __ ] None of that, right? Yeah. You not nothing like that. It's not worth it. But what else I found out though is that see my guys have become so big in their own rights is if they mention your name one time to their little workers and then they workers run out. Oh man, the homie Rick took care of us. And these guys words were so powerful that they would only have to mention you one time. You know, they like uh I guess you would call them almost like evangelists. and that you keep having these type of guys mention your name, then the next thing you know, your name is everything. This is all what you summised once you got into prison and really sat down with all the time in the world to analyze what was going on. How how long did it last? How many years did you sell for? Eight years. Eight years. So you were 28 when you got arrested. Yep. Wow. That's crazy. So you would live That's a long career for a drug dealer. It's huge. Yeah. Yeah. Most of my friends who who started, you know, and got big, two years, three years and they gone. What kind of car were you driving? Try to stay low key, man. I had a Ford LTD station wagon with the wood grain on the side. I had the exact same car. Wood grain on the side. I had the little bird. Yep. You know the little funeral home bird. Wow. On the side of the windows. I had a 1980 one of those. But wait a
minute. The funeral home bird. Did you have that on on purpose? Did you put that on there so it looked like a funeral home car? Yeah. The police pulled up on the side of that. They looked the other way. Nobody want to look in that car. That's a That's hilarious. It was almost like a hearse. Yeah. How many people, you know, want to look in the funeral home car? That's brilliant. That's [ __ ] brilliant. So, you were driving around in a scam car. Wow. I knew if the police try to pull that thing over was in there. That's hilarious. But do you must have like looked at Ferraris and Lamborghinis. God damn. I could just go buy one of those, man. All my guys had them, you know. If I want to go out in a Ferrari, I just call one of my guys, man, I want to use your Ferrari tonight. You Oh. Oh, that's cool. Your your vet, you know, without the headaches, you know. Right. Right. I ain't got to put it up. I ain't got to How did you get so smart? That's It's amazing. It just It just It just started coming, you know. Just little by little, you know. Some say, "No, don't wear no jewelry cuz if you wear jewelry, everybody going to know you sell drugs." Right. Right. I didn't want nobody I didn't want my mama to know I sold drugs. What did you tell your mom you were doing? I didn't, you know, she when she found out I had all that money, man, she one day uh uh cuz my spot is is like my spot was like two two or three miles from my house. So, what I would do is I would go to the spot work and every time I get like 2,000, I'd run to the house and put it up and run back to the track because you don't want to be standing out on the track with too much money cuz the police come over, man, when you get $3,000. What you doing stand out there with all this money? Right. Problems. So what I would do is every time I get a couple thousand dollars, I'd run to the house and put it up. So my mom see me keep running the house, you know, back and forth, back and forth, all day long. I'm doing this all
day, all night. I don't do nothing else. I ain't got a girlfriend and I'm single. Right. Right. This my love is to be out on the track. I'm doing this 18, 19 hours a day. Wow. Sleeping, jumping right back in. Yeah. And all the time you sleeping, you're losing money. Sometime I sleep in the car on the spot, you know. Wow. With some with [ __ ] on you. Just a little bit though, you know. Now you you packing a gun or you When I got my boy standing out, he's standing back like say for inance we stand out on the street and we cur we call it curb servant. Now I would be standing out on the curb and then he would be sitting like in somebody's yard with the pistol. Uhhuh. So if somebody got at me or something like that, then he would just bust out and start running. Right. So he's he's from a different vantage point. They don't even see him as a part. They don't even see him as as my like the police. if the police come and and raid, they going to grab us, stand out on the block, and they're not going to bother him cuz he's up in somebody's yard, right? So, you know, we had a little crazy system that we had lined up. And that's brilliant. So, um you you had a spot was like like on a street corner or something like that. Like there was an area 81st and 81st in between Hoover and Vermont. It was like apartment complexes, you know, a bunch of apartment complexes. And how do you get a spot? Like what do other dudes try to move in on your spot because they know that everybody goes there to buy? Well, at that time nobody was trying to move in on my spot because nobody really could get the cocaine. They didn't they didn't know how valuable cocaine was. They didn't really really I had abandoned the spot when other guys start coming there. You know, I had gotten so big. See, I didn't stay out on the streets long cuz I took all my money and parlayed it back into the game. So, I got big so fast that I was able to then start selling these guys uh
three grams and then they would go out and sell it and I was just making like 50 $75 off every three grams that I would sell them. And that started to be so much money that I didn't even need to sell 50s and hundreds no more. So people just they became they became a you were like the main dude and everybody sold it for you. Right. Right. So then where did you keep everything? Did you have like a warehouse? Like how did you uh have it set up so you could Well, eventually what I did is I set up spots. Like say for instance, if you eventually when I got real big, I have like $50 spots. And if you go to my spot and spend $50 would be like going to somebody else's spot and spend $100. You could do what they call double up. You could double your money. You buy $50 worth, you can make 50 more. Now, if you would go there and you start buying those 50s and you get up to spending 2,000, then the people at that house would take you to another house where you would have to come there and spend 2,000. Then if you got up to buying 10,000, then you would get to go to another house. And then we would have a lot of these $50 houses, they would be just all over the place. And then it would just be a 52 a few $2,000 spots. And then it would be even less $10,000 spots, you know. And this is all for distributors, right? This is all for distributors. So you had like distributing houses. You had like a whole tier system, right? Absolutely. That's brilliant. Absolutely. I didn't know I didn't know exactly what, you know, what they how they called it at the time, but I knew See, what I did is I dealt with people the way I wanted to be dealt with. I knew the problems that I had when I was coming up. So I tried to cut out all their problems for them. I didn't want them to have to deal with none of the headaches, you know, not worrying about how to cook it, how to get it at at a safe price, how to make sure that the place was safe. I I I took care of all that for them. When they came to me, they knew they was going to get their proper stuff. They knew they weren't going to be robbed. They knew how they would be able to reup again. Everything
was was like cookie cutter for them almost. Wow. That's amazing. So, you're doing this for eight years. You said from the beginning it was crazy. But when when did you start getting legal problems? Man, my problem starting around 86. How many years in was that? Six years. Six years almost. Yeah. So what what was it? They started arresting you. They started asking where you're getting money from. Freeway task force, man. They started to go crazy. First they uh they started to raid spots that we didn't even sell drugs at. you know, they started raiding my girlfriend's houses and and planting drugs on them, you know, because I didn't keep drugs at my girlfriend's house because I stayed there, you know, but those were the easiest spots to figure out, you know, where that were connected to me, you know, where people came over cuz they would let their friends come over like my work spots. You didn't come to my work spot unless you sold drugs when no need for you coming over there. Don't even, you know, don't even ask where that's at, right? So they they raided my girlfriend's houses and then they would take them to jail for drugs and and and stuff like that there. So I'm like, "Wow." So then they started to get my guys, you know, they start to catch my guys driving down the street and they playing drugs on them and it just got really crazy until it got to the point where one night I'm uh coming from a basketball gym. I'm going adjust your mic real quick. Okay. Just put it like this so it makes a big difference talking to Yeah. All right. Okay. There we go. Yeah. So, uh, I'm riding down the street one day and, uh, me and my guys and we we said, "Man, look at all the homies over there playing dice." So, they was at my tire shop. So, we jump out, go by, holl at them, you know, see who winning the crap game. And when we get ready to leave, the whole crap game come with me, you know, like it's it's 10, 11:00 at night. So, they all want to walk me out to the car, make sure everything is good. So, I
jump in the car and pull off and I look in the rearview mirror and it's a car following me with no lights on. So, we go on a high-speed chase, you know, chase for a few minutes through the hood, trying to lose them. And then I look up cars all around us coming, pop, lights popping on, you know what I'm saying? I'm like, "Oh, man." Set up. So, uh, I wind up getting out the car, jumping out the car, leave the car rolling, and jump out and get away. Well, they shooting at me. Police. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Bullets whizzing across my head and the whole nine yards. And, uh, I get away. So once I get away the next morning, my lawyer called me and said, "Man, you had uh you had two kilos of cocaine on you that night." I said, "Man, I ain't had no cocaine that night." He said, "Yeah, they they uh uh they say you had two keys of cocaine and you shot at the police." So uh my mom called me, you know, she's crying. Oh, the police been by here, raided the house, had everybody outside handcuffed and said they going to kill you. We want you to turn yourself in. So her and my lawyer convinced me to turn myself in and we go in. We, you know, fight the case. I wind up beating it though because the door was all planted, you know. How'd that prove the drugs were planted? Man, it was it was hard. You know what I'm saying? I I stayed in jail for a while. No bail. They had me on a million dollar bail, 1251, where all the property and everything had to be inspected and make sure it wasn't drug proceeds and and all that. Man, it was crazy going through all that. But um while I was in jail, the cops come down to my cell to interrogate me. So they pull me out the cell take me to the back of the jail, you know, where they whoop people up at and stuff and um start ask me a bunch of crazy questions about drugs and all this and about my lawyer. You know, your lawyer should have let you take the deal. Who know why he think he going to fight this case? You ain't going to win. We always get our man. So during this time that they're interviewing me, they recording everything. And at the end of the the the interrogation, they tell me, "You
better not tell your lawyer what happened. If we find out that you told him, we going to uh we going to take care of you." So I don't even tell my lawyer. So we get to court the next time we go to court and uh they got the guy on the witness stand. He's testifying. I said, "Man, you know that guy came down there and seen me like two weeks ago." And so he thinking that I ain't going to tell my lawyer never. Right. So my lawyer springing on him like, "Man, you was at the county jail a couple weeks ago." And he was like, "Yeah." Cuz you know, he signed in. So he knew he had to say, "Yeah." He said, "You saw my client." He's like, "Yeah." He said, "You knew he had a lawyer, didn't you?" And he's like, "Yeah, I knew he had a lawyer." Now, don't you record all all the conversations when uh when you interview uh suspects? He said, "Yeah, I want that tape." He said, "Yan, I want that tape." And so they put brought the tape in. The tape was all spiced up and cut up and erased and all kind of stuff really. So the judge was like, "Man, get this case out of here." Really? But what they did is they took it to the feds and had the feds to indict me without the tape. You know, like that lost the tape, you know, they never told the feds about the tape. or the tape. So the feds indict me for that case. But then when they do, I had hired a private investigator to invest the cops to investigate the cops. Then we show them. Hey, look what we got on them. You guys don't want to use them as witnesses. That's hilarious. What did you get on them? Oh man, we had them beating people, playing drugs. 150 people got released from prison behind those cops doing what they did. What a lot of people don't realize is how deep corruption is in some police forces, especially in Los Angeles, a certain point in time, especially like the Rampart district. Like people don't even know the story behind that was a criminal gang. Now, do you know Rampard was a a falloff from the Freeway Task Force? Really? Yeah. Freeway Task Force was the beginning of of that whole thing. The
Freeway Task Force was the most elite task force in in in the country. Just to get you. Just to get me. Wow. I feel fortunate. I mean, what's crazy is you're out now. Does it feel weird to be a guy telling the story? How many guys get their own task force? They're very few. There's like one in a bill. And you get you get your little rapper puppet, you know, hey, you got a freeway task force, a rapper puppet. You You lived a [ __ ] charm life. You sold $600 million worth of coke yet. You're out on the street and now I might be f to get a judge. Wow. You might get a judge. Yeah. What do you mean in this case? You know, this judge might I don't know which case? This Rick Ross case? Yeah. You You think you The judge is corrupt? I don't know. Is that what you're saying? I don't know. Are you investigating this judge? I am. Yeah. Really? Yeah. I think you should. I mean, I want to know how she came to her conclusions, you know. Why? Why did you, you know? Yeah. Those are ridiculous conclusions. Exactly. So, I want to get to the bottom of I'm going to get to the bottom of it, you know. Well, have you found anything? and talk about it, right? She Freemason a little bit. A little bit. You know, he ain't no Freemason. He ain't no Freemason. She He means the judge. Yeah, but they Yeah, but he's not either supposedly. What? He's supposed to be a Freemason or something. The rapper. Yeah. Rick Ross is supposed to be a free m the fake free. He said that before, but what we call him what the [ __ ] is his name again? Uh Billy Bob. Let's call him Fat Bill for the rest of the show.
So Fat Bill is supposed to be a Freemason, too. I don't know. He said it on a couple songs or something like that. Wow. Okay. But I know the Masons are not really happy with it. Oh, really? That's hilarious. Yeah, they contacted me. They're not happy with that at all. Wow. So, you you get arrested. So, eventually, how do you how do you wind up getting taken down? You got through all this. You got through this one case where they try to plant two kilos on you. Mo supplier, Danilo Blandon. He brings me down. He bring me down. Your supplier brought you down. This was the Nicaraguan guy. Yeah. He brought me down. He gave you up. Gave me up. Yeah. And this is uh delivered me. Oh, and this is while the Oliver North [ __ ] all that was going down. Was this before that? I think it was after that. That was Ali had got his pardon. I need a pardon, too. Anybody out there know Obama and tell him I'm looking for a pardon. I did my part. I mean, why shouldn't I get a library like Reagan? That's hilarious. That's so true, too. Right. If you really find out if you people think that this is nonsense, you know that the the connection between the CIA and selling drugs has been pretty well documented. Go look up a case on a guy named Barry Seal. Barry Seal was a a guy out of Mina, Arkansas, who is, by the way, that's Bill Clinton's [ __ ] stomping grounds. That's where they were dropping coke. They were flying coke in from South America, and they were dropping it off in Mina, Arkansas. And the story goes, two kids see the drop. Uh they catch the kids and kill them. And then they put the kids on the train tracks and say that the kids fell asleep on train tracks and got they were high and they fell asleep and they got run over by trains. So the parents do an autopsy on the bodies and they find knife wounds. Wow. So they find out no these kids were murdered. They go into the story. It turns out Barry Seals gets busted
because it was his plane that was coming in at that time. And then they find out about the coke and he gives up all the information. And they w up assassinating him when he was on his way to trial. Well, man, Gary Webb killed himself. Shot himself in the head twice. Twice with a shotgun. So, I mean, was it a shotgun he shot himself in the head twice with? I think so. I haven't saw the reports, but I think that's what somebody said. It was a shotgun. Wow. Yeah. How do you shoot yourself in the head twice? That seems like that's You didn't do the job. Yeah. You didn't You had a job to do and you didn't finish it. That doesn't seem to make sense to me. Take care of it. I've heard it's possible to shoot yourself in the head twice. But you know that's also the dude who was the whistleblower for Enron shot himself in the head twice. Oh yeah. Yeah. Not too suspicious, right? This gigantic multi-billionaire scam goes down. One [ __ ] starts ratting people out. Winds up shooting himself in a car twice in the head. Wow. Really? How many people have committed suicide by a gunshot to the head twice? I mean, I've seen people get knocked out with like a little bitty punch. And you're telling me you shoot it yourself in your awake after that? They had good willpower. Yeah, I guess. To make sure the job was done. Well, I guess if you had any strength left, if you shot yourself in the head and you realized you were still alive and you had any strength left, you would probably shoot yourself again. You know, you'd be like, "What the [ __ ] I'm going to just bleed out here in the car, man. This Americans buy anything." Yeah. So, you do you think Gary Webb was murdered? I mean his book Dark Alliance essentially what happened is it started out a bunch of articles written for the San Jose Mercury News and it was later published as a book and in a three-part series he investigated the Nicaraguan linked uh to the CIA backed contress who had allegedly it's like he exposed the whole thing and brought the Reagan
administration into light and exposed them for essentially being drug dealers. Absolutely. And Gary was amazing man. I mean you know he's the one who stopped the forfeiture laws. You know, they used to would take your property before uh you were found guilty of a drug crime. And Gary made them stop that and saying, "Hey, at least you got to take this guy to trial, find out he was selling drugs before you take his property." Because before they would take your property, sell it, and then you get kicked out of prison, and you never got convicted. And they'd be like, "Oh, well, your car is gone." Well, what's hilar Yeah. What's hilarious is if you look at uh how the the Patriot Act has been used, you know how many times the Patriot Act has actually been used for terrorism? It's a tiny tiny tiny fraction because the Patriot Act classifies drug selling as terrorism. So the Patriot Act has been used for drug selling thousands of times and it's been used for terrorism like a small handful. It's it's kind of cute. It's kind of cute how they've figured out how to circumvent the system. Absolutely. I mean, it it's crazy the way uh um I saw a thing on CNN the other night and they were talking about how California has built so many prisons and absolutely no colleges in the past 10 years. I'm like, I mean, this is what happened to an ounce of prevention. Yeah. You know, we going with pounds and tons of cure, but no prevention. Well, the worst thing ever happened that could be possible, they made private prisons. They made it profitable for people to put people in jail, which is [ __ ] insane. The fact I mean that is that's some Orwellian [ __ ] That's some that's some [ __ ] that should have been taking place. It is slavery. It is slavery. It's 100% slavery. Especially when you have certain government organizations that lobby to keep certain things illegal, like drug selling, like non-violent crimes, like non-violent drug offenses. When you're you're telling someone that they don't have control over their own consciousness and because you they don't agree with you as to what they can and can't do, you're going to lock them in a cage and profit from it. That's amazing. It's a great business to somebody.
That's [ __ ] amazing though that in 2012 with our all the access to information that we have today that that's still a legal thing. I mean, it's just another piece of perfect advice or or perfect information rather that just show shows you how corrupt the system is. Yeah. It's it's it's it's incredible. It's incredible when you really stop and think about how many prisoners there are. This is good that we got people like you though bringing this stuff to light. I mean, I don't see why more more people don't stand up, you know? But I guess people saw what happened to Gary and they're like, "Sure." Yeah, right. Me me go out there and put my job on the line and my family and their wellbeing. I only expose [ __ ] that's already been exposed. That's I'm I come in like third, fourth, fifth, sixth. I'm not the number one guy breaking the news. So, you make sure it's safe. Shit's already clear. It's already on the internet. By the time I hear about it, I'm I'm like a third-hand reporter. Somebody finds it on the internet, they tweet me, I find out about it, and then I go with it. But, uh, I actually found out about you through, uh, Kevin Boost documentary. Um, uh, the the Great White Hope, American Drug War. Yeah, Kevin's a good guy. Kevin, uh, you know, kept an eye on me when I was in prison, you know, uh, wrote me. I could call Kevin. And he interviewed you from prison as well. He did. He did. He did. When I met with Kevin, Kevin made my life a little easier while I was in prison, you know. Shout out to Kevin Booth. Kevin produced my first DVD, my first comedy DVD. 1999, you know, I sent the book I read the book that uh he his uh buddy wrote uh Bill Hicks. Yeah. Yeah. Kevin's a good guy though. Yeah. He uh he became I mean who he is because of his friendship with Bill Hicks, you know, he used to follow Bill Hicks around and record him. And Bill Hicks, as far as standup comedians are concerned, like one of the top 10 greatest comedians of all time for sure, you know, right up there with a lot of
people like Richard Brier, right? Even though he didn't live very long, died of uh pancreatic cancer when he was only in his young 30s. Yeah. You know, but um so he creates this this documentary, the American Drug War. And that's that's how I heard about you and I and that's how I heard about cuz I had already I had already heard about Barry Seals and uh Barry Seal and his connection with uh the CIA and selling drugs. But I didn't I didn't know of any one person like you who could be directly connected to the dude that was connected to Nicaragua that was connected to Oliver North and and the whole chain of events. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think when uh when the when when Blandon testified against me, he talked about um his boss going on fishing trip with George Bush Senior. Wow. When the kid when Barry Seal was murdered, he had George Bush's phone number in his pocket. Deep. As deep as it gets. Might have been a tracking device in that phone number. We know where you at. And And meanwhile And meanwhile, no one goes to jail. No one on that side goes to jail. Oh yeah. Nothing. No one goes to jail. Why should they? It's amazing. They make the laws. But how the [ __ ] did they let you out? How's that work? Yeah. They only you you went in for 20 years. I had the life sentence, man. And how did you get out early? Learning how to read and write and study the law and found a l loophole. What was the loophole? Well, what they did is they charged me under the three strike law. And uh what they were saying is that since I had got convicted in all these different states that those added up to three strikes, but what they didn't see in the in the law is that in order to get struck out, you have to go to prison, get out, then commit another crime, go to prison, get out, and then commit the third one. And that's three strikes. So they can't get you on three felonies before you're ever convicted. That's not
three strikes, right? It's not three strikes. If if if if say for instance what I use is is a guy standing out when I used to stand out on the street, I used to make hundreds of sales a day right there on that one block. So I said, now if somebody wanted to, they could have gave me 100 convictions, right? Because I sold to different people every time, right? So I didn't believe that the law meant that every sale you made was a separate conviction. I believe that they meant just like I just explained it to you. Right. Right. Right. Because if so, then everybody whoever sold cocaine would have three strikes. And it makes sense because the idea is supposed to be theoretically that jail is supposed to be able to re rehabilitate you. Exactly. So if you are unrehabilitatable, if you've gone through two separate times and you're still out doing the same [ __ ] all right, well, this dude's a career criminal. This is his third offense. Done. That makes sense. And that's how the law was rolled up. Even though I don't believe you should play baseball with people lives, right? Right? You know, cuz a person could not be changed at one time and then be changed tomorrow and then his circumstances change and he may be in a different position. You know, before you can start passing judge judgment on people, you have to live in their shoes, right? And and you know, that's why people ask me now, how do I feel about drug dealers? And I be like, I ain't got nothing against them, you know? Right? They do what they feel like they got to do or what they know they got to do. So, uh, before we pass judgment, we have to get all the facts and live in that person's shoes to see if we would do the same thing that they did. And you're a perfect example of that. Absolutely. Now, you you're away for you went away for 20 years. You find this loophole.
How how deep into your sentence had you had already figured out how to read. How how long? I started reading immediately. Right away. Yeah. Yeah. You took take classes there in person. No, I learned I taught my me and my taught me how to read. He made me some Q cards with my ABCs on them and Oh, cool. I went from from nose to uh reading my indictment to reading the newspapers to uh to reading law books. I mean, you know, for the first time, what I found out is that I had never wanted to read before in my life. That was the real problem. I never really wanted to read, right? I mean, I didn't see any reason why Jack and Jill went up the hill and why I should know. You know what I'm saying? They didn't have Right. They wasn't chasing no money. I was chasing money. Right. Right. Right. It was It wasn't interesting to you. It wasn't interesting to me. But then once you realized, well, there's a lot of information that I don't have access to. I got to I got I became an advocate reader. I read over 300 books before I left prison. Really? Yeah. Wow. You've read more books than I have in my lifetime. Yeah. So, you're in prison. You're you're you're learning how to read. At what point in time did you start devising a plan to try to like figure out a way to get out of there? Uh immediately I was trying to get out. You know, I knew that the guys that were going home was the guys that was going to the law library learn how to become lawyers. You know, they knew how to fight the system. And then they had like guys that all they did all day was sit there and study the law. You know, they would sit at a table while other people were playing cards and chess and dominoes. They would be studying the law. So, I got I got in with those guys. That's got to be kind of a crazy feeling, man. Everybody's just hoping you can crack this [ __ ] system that's
got you locked up. we is tough when your head starts to hurt daily. You get you got like migraine headaches and you're sitting in this concrete building. I'm going to try to draw a picture for you. You're sitting in this concrete building. It's 28 stories high. Um nothing but concrete and steel. The windows are about 3 in wide open and about 6 feet long. escape. It looks almost impossible, but you know, you think about that, too. Like, if I had a long rope, I could scale the side of the building. So, uh it's like a desperation, you know, and you're saying, "Man, it got to be one loophole in these books." Because you know that if you can show them in the book where they made a mistake or where the book says that they should have did this when they did that, then you know you got action. So, you're you you're getting headaches just from thinking and reading too much. Yeah, that's all you want to do. You just want to stand them books, you know. I got a life sentence, you know. When you got a life sentence, it's like this is forever, you know. This is all you're going to see for the rest of your life, you know. So, um, I didn't think that was fitting for me. It's amazing that they convicted you for life on that three strikes law. It seems like you should be able to go after them for abusing the law, which should be criminal. Well, you can't you can't go after the federal prosecutor. He's immune. That's amazing. from from from prosecution because he he's not working as an individual even if it's been proven that he's corrupt. Well, maybe if you can prove he's he's corrupt, but but not because he incompetent unjustly Yeah. incompetent in your case. You know, if he does something to you, you know, he could charge you with a thousand keys even though you only had one, you know, and if you got a thousand keys, you know, that gives you a life sentence. If you got one, you know, you can get probation, but uh uh if it's powder, right? That's that's a thing people don't know about. That's another good point.
Not crack because crack was in the ghetto and powder was all these, you know, other people, these people that had money were using the the powder. Crack is way more illegal. Yeah. Was 100 to one. Wow. That's incredible. That is Is that racist? Very racist. And it has to be, right? And I I think I mean and even though they just changed it 18 to1 I think that was still Why is it one to one? That's what I said because they already prove you know I sat down on the couch with the guy who invented the law. Really? Yeah. It's going to be in the documentary. Sick sick sick documentary after you're out. You sat down with him. Yeah. I've been doing that since I've been out. I've been doing a documentary since I've been out, man. And and and and one of the things that I got mad about even with Obama and his administration is that they didn't make it one to one. And then even after they made it 18 to1, they left it for guys that have been in 20 years, 25 years. They didn't make it retroactive. Wow. Meaning that they don't get out. They don't get no benefit from the from the 18 to1. These guys right now, if they if they had the 18 to1, they would walk out of prison today. Wow. So, I'm saying if it's wrong today and you did it 20 years ago was wrong then, right? But they saying, "Oh, well, they're they lost their uh uh because you know, Clinton signed a bill where you're 2255, you got one year after you're convicted to come up with newly discovered evidence." And the law is crazy, man. Like right now, say if you're in, if you go to prison unjustly and you do all your appeals and everything, one year, you have one year to prove yourself innocent. Now, after that one year, if you don't find it, and then a day after that one year, you find this newly discovered evidence, you can't even submit it to the court. Oh, that's got to be maddening.
It's maddening. They got guys in there that that that found newly discovered evidence that they can't even submit it for anybody to hear it. So, when you went to jail for this and when you're finally in prison, was it was this the first time you had ever been in prison other than the the one time you got arrested and you you stayed in there for a while? No. No. Uh, that was my second time when I got the life sentence. I've been in jail twice. So, you had two strikes. You had one strike already. Had one strike already. How long did you go away for the first time? Five and a half years. Wow. So, you And the second time I was entrapped. I didn't even go into that part with you. I was entrapped cuz I wasn't selling drugs. I was building a youth center because what I did is is is I figured out what kids in the ghetto need to get them out of gangs and drugs. I know what they need. So what I did is I bought I bought a theater. They need some some some instructions. They need somebody to come and and and walk them through it. Somebody they can go and talk to when they need to talk to them. You know, not talk to them once they already been corrupted and their kids are already in the game. They don't want to hear you then. You know, I already got my mind made up. I know what I'm doing. I'm my own man. But before they get like that, they need somebody a place that they can go and and they could talk to Joe Rogan or Rick Ross or Magic Johnson or Opera Winfrey or some of these other people who could teach them how to make money other ways. You know, because in in the ghetto, you know, the first business you see in the ghetto, you know what the first business is? What? The drug man. He's going to be the first businessman that you see in in South Central Los Angeles is going to be the drug man. and especially a black man as a business owner because we don't we don't own nothing in South Central. So you this when you got you so you said you got set up. This is the last time. Yeah. Yeah. When I got the life sentence, this guy called me. I'm not selling drugs.
You weren't selling drugs at all. How did you stop? I hadn't sold drugs in six years, seven years. What? How did you stop? I just quit. Did you quit after you got arrested the first time and did five years? No. No. I quit a year and a half before I went to prison. I was like, "Man, I'm through with this. I got I got 8 $900,000 cash. I got property all over the place. All I got to do now is make this property and stuff work for me. And, you know, I got enough money to hold me off for a while. I'm through with it." So, I walked away from the game. So, I'm confused on your timeline here because when you were 20 years old, that's when you started. And then when you were 28, you got arrested, right? But you did five years in jail, right? Where's the five years? I did the five years in 89 I went to prison. How old were you then? 28. Like 28 and a2. Okay. So 28 and a half. You go to jail for 5 years and then you get out for how? I got out I got out for 6 months. For 6 months and then they give you the life sentence, right? Whoa. God damn. So the life sentence is a total setup. Total setup. Total. Total entrapment. I was not selling drugs. Denilo called me and uh matter of fact, he called me the day I got out of prison. Whoa. He was like, "Man, I need to see you." I was like, "Man, I'm kicking it with my mom." You know, my mom came and see me and and stuff like that. So, I'm like, "I'm kicking it with my mom. I'm cool. I'll holl at you in a couple days." So, when I finally go and holler at him, he's telling me, "Oh, man. I got it at this price. I got it at that price." I was like, "What? That's a good price." And all this is recorded, too. So, you know, that didn't help. You know, they was like, "Oh, you were interested." Wow. So, uh um this went on for 6 months that he courted me, you Whoa. Calling me dropping the price. Dropping
the price, [ __ ] And then uh one day he called me and I was riding with one of my little homies, Chico Brown. And uh I said, "Man, this dude just told me uh woo woo woo." And Chico's like, "Man, I can sell all that." And that that's how I got started. So I wind up making an introduction to the two of them. Chico handing the money and police come from everywhere. So you never even got to sell? No, I never sold it. So, this guy, where is he now? Danilo. Uh, he's in Nicaragua. Just chilling. He's supposed to be in a documentary, too. Really? Yo, y'all better check that documentary out. It's going to be dope. Sounds awesome. Do Now this Danilo And we And we going to have a cop that planned the drugs. Whoa. Is Do you have proof that he planted the drugs? I know he planned the drugs, right? But is he a He went to jail? No, I don't think he's going to admit he plans the drug, but he went to jail for it. He went to jail for planting those drugs, for corruption, you know, beating people, planting drugs, lying on police report. It was a habit. That's how he was doing it. Well, I mean, he made money, man. Yeah. Well, that's where the ramp part comes in. I mean, for people who don't know, most most police officers at this point in time believe that Suge Knight hired cops to kill Biggie Smalls and that um they also he probably also had Tupac killed and that he did it all under this under this Rampart division. This Rampart division was working for him. I mean, there's a huge Rolling Stone article about it. It's fascinating, fascinating [ __ ] that the cops were so dirty that the cops were working with gang members. They're working with murderers, working with criminals, and making money, clearly profiting. Well, you know, cops, man, they just like everybody else, you know, um they
lie, cheat, and and and all other things that that the normal person go through in life. So, I don't put nothing past them, especially when you start putting all that money on the table. You know, I remember my first young guy who uh got arrested by him and they stole his money. He was like 16 years old. And uh he called me. He was like, "Rick, man, the cops just raided my house." I was like, "Yeah, you all right?" He's like, "Yeah, I'm cool." I was like, "What you have?" He's like, "Man, I had like $40,000." I said, "What happened?" He said, "Man, they asked me who money was and I told him it wasn't mine. They told me to go." Wow. So, when he got out, when I got with him, you know, we called a lawyer and told the lawyer, "Hey, man, they was $40,000 at that house, but was no drugs." So, he called and they said, "Man, what no money at that house." Wow. That's super common, right? Yeah. Yeah, that happened all the time. There's no one policing the police. There's no one governing the government. It's tough. You know, that's the real issue. They got the be they got the guns. Yeah. Well, not only that, they can change the laws. I mean, we see what the [ __ ] is going on now with this country. It's like every week they come up with some new even more restrictive even more or well-in law that gets through that allows them to tap your phones with no wire with no warrants rather, you know, listen in on your your phone calls. tap your [ __ ] GPS systems. They can follow everywhere you go. And they can do all this [ __ ] without warrants now. Yeah. I mean, and they do it supposedly under the guise of terrorism, but it's really under the guise of making it easier for them to prosecute you for whatever the [ __ ] they want to cuz there's a goddamn business and locking people up in cages. Exactly. Exactly. So, that's what they into. And uh so you find your loophole and then you chase after it. You're in jail, right? And then once once you find this loophole, I remember that day when I read it in the book, you know, it was like, man, it just like popped out at me. Boom. Go to jail, commit a crime, and get
released. I shot to the phone. I called my lawyer. I said, "Man, I found it." Wow. So, what happens then? Well, it was discouraging what he said after he read it. He didn't see it the same way I did. And damn, you're a better lawyer than your [ __ ] lawyer. He graduated from Harvard. That's hilarious. Wow. I should get an honorary degree from a little something. Yeah. So, so I just told him or I put on the books, you know. Then the judge went through her thing. Oh, no, Mr. Ross. It's not the way you say it is. And I was like, can she must can't read. If she can't read that, she can't read. So then the prosecutor went through his whole thing. But then I went to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and uh they agreed with me totally, you know, said that uh if they uh did it the way they were saying do it that they would lock up, everybody would be career criminals on their first arrest. So yeah, literally everybody would be in life. Here I am. Life here I am a free man. So ninth circ ninth circuit court of appeals, they agree with you. They side with you. Are you released immediately? No. I had nine more years to do, man. Jesus Christ. Why nine more years? Uh that's just where it was, you know. That's how much time I had left. Okay. So you had 20 though cuz they cut me down. No, no, I had a life, but they cut me down to 20. So the 9inth Circuit Court of Appeals cut you down to 20. Mhm. Okay. So at least you knew there was a light at the end of the tunnel then, right? Right. So then you Oh, I was happy with that. You were happy with that? Yeah. I was going to leave the penitentiary cuz I was up at Lamp Penitentiary, you know, USP Lamp. And how what is that place like? Oh man, that's a dungeon. You know, everybody in there got 40 years or better. You know, they mad at you up there if you got 20. You know, they got to get you out of
there with 20 years. You know, something might happen to you. Really, man? Yeah. Those guys 20 years is freedom. 20 years is you're almost free. Yeah. You got to you got to walk on eggshells around here. If you have 20 years, you ain't got 20 years. You You better go away from here. Wow. That's how they talk to you. They were like mad at you. Oh, they'd be mad at you. They mad at you if you only got 20 years. Yeah. Unless you got 30 years, they might be mad. God damn, that's hilarious. Yeah. Hilarious. I mean, you can get hurt. You can get hurt there just because you got 20 years. How did you stay out of danger? Well, uh, like I said, when I got my time cut, I only had to stay there like three more months and I was out of there. So, it was it was easy for me and and you know, I'm a well-liked guy, too. So, that You've been in jail? Yeah. Yeah. They like me in jail. How How dangerous was the the prison that you were in initially? The first prison before they moved you out? Oh, man. I saw guys get hit in the head with uh iron mop ringers. Iron what? Mop ringers. A mop ringers. Ring the mop out. This great big old thing might weigh about 15 20 pounds. Yeah. And a guy sitting in his chair and a guy walks up behind him and just smashes the skull with it. I mean, brutal, brutal, brutal, brutal sight. I seen a guy get beat with a baseball bat, aluminum baseball bat, until his head was like mush. They had to helicopter him out uh on the helicopter. I think he had brain damage though. He he didn't, you know, was a vegetable. Uh I've seen guys get stabbed, you know, while I'm taking a shower. You know, you hear this loud noise like just keep bumping up against the wall. Boom, boom, boom. Really violently, you know, and you know, this
is somebody's body, you know, like why would somebody be hitting the wall this hard, you know, and uh so I I I wrap my towel up and I look my head out the shower and I see this guy and this guy stabbing him. And so to get off the knife, he's just throwing his back and head and everything up against the wall trying to get away from the knife. So it's really violent. I mean, prison is really violent. You know, you you have to be careful, especially in the USPS. You know, the USPS are low on dangerous too, but not as dangerous as USP cuz these guys don't have nothing to What is a USP? US penitentiary. Yeah, US penitentiary. What is the difference? Well, say for instance a FCI, you can't have more than 20 years and be at the FCI. If you have more than 20 years, FCI stands for uh federal correctional institution. That's like a medium. Okay? So, if you have more than than than 20 years, you're going to go to a USP. Now, if you go to a FCI and you got 20 years, but you keep getting into trouble, fights and you know something, maybe you stab somebody, then they're gonna send you to a USP because, okay, you go up here. These guys can handle stabbings. So, they they they'll boost you up. Then they got what they call a low is for the guys who got like five years, six years, then you go to a low. So, they kind of keep it separated like that by your violence, uh by how much you get in trouble, things like that. So the uh USP is the most dangerous. That's the the most Absolutely. Absolutely. Murderers, life sentences. And then they have guys from all over the country. Say for you in Washington DC and and and uh you've been getting in trouble in Washington DC. Then they ship you down to California to keep you out of trouble. You know, some of those guys from DC are really really violent. And what they do is they take all the baddest guys from all over the country and they put them in US SPS. So you may have a a thing where guys are fighting over territory like the TV, you know, like the DC guys or the Philadelphia guys might say, "Man, we want to watch
this program tonight. The Philadelphia 76ers are playing, so we want to watch Philadelphia 76ers tonight cuz you're always watching the Lakers." So that could cause a fight, you know? It's it's kind of like territorial, you know, the way it works. But did you get into any violent interactions? Oh, absolutely not. Absolutely not. I stayed in the law library. Really? They don't come in the LA library and fight. So, how did you That's how you avoided everything? Most of the time. The only time I really would put myself in uh in in in harm's way is when when football season, you know, I played flag football with the guys. I played basketball with them. Uh but I always had a mentality to to to diffuse anything that that ever happened. I wouldn't fight. You know, if if somebody filed me hard on the basketball court, it was my fault because I put myself on the basketball court. If I filed somebody hard on the basketball court, it was my fault because I filed him hard. So, I would always apologize uh to guys when I filed them hard. But that's just the type of person I am. You know, when I play basketball, I don't mean to hurt anybody, but sometimes I do. You know, I filed a lot. But uh um I you know, I got it on well. you know, people respected me and I showed the utmost respect for everybody. Did you have to align yourself with any groups in prison? I didn't. No, I didn't. Even though I am adopted by uh most groups, you know, they adopt me. Most groups. Yeah. Most of the groups in jail adopt me, you know. Uh I mean, everybody, you know, the Philadelphia guys, the the Crips, the Bloods, uh the DC's. I mean, I'm cool. I'm just cool with all of them, you know. Uh the only one probably is not is is is um what's the the Serenios and the Aram brothers are probably the only two groups that but it's the Serenos Mexicans. Yeah. And then the Aryan brothers obviously is KKK dude. Yeah. Other than that I got along and even they got along you know they would
speak to me you know hey Rick what's happening but you know we don't hang out but they don't hang out with blacks. Now the day you got out of jail man what the [ __ ] was that like? the day you get out of 20 years and knowing that you got out, you know, on your own by hair. By hair, you know, it was luck because, you know, it was guys when I was in prison, it was guys who had the same issue I had that didn't get out. Wow. That argued it almost the same way. You know, matter of fact, we're trying to get the guy who uh was the first guy to get a life sentence for selling crack. We're trying to get his interview and his issue was was almost identical to mine. Just a little different though, but close. And he's he's in for life. He's in for life. And he was only like 20 years old, 19 years old. And it is the same situation. They used a three- strike rule on him. Use a three- strike rule on him. Yeah. But he he didn't have three convictions. His convictions a little different, right? He he he did have convictions. Uh his was he he went to jail when he was 18 years old. He got out and the same day he got out, he went right back on the block and started selling dope again. and he got arrested that day. So, he wasn't convicted. He wasn't convicted of the first one when he caught the second one. But they said, "It don't matter if you was convicted. You had been to jail, so you should have learned your lesson and you went back out and you did it again." Oh, there's got to be a lot of that. He was mad at me when I won. Really? Yeah. And it's supposed to be my man, too. He was mad, man. How you win? I had the same issue. I said, "No, yours is a little different." See, I never got out on mine. See, on mine, they took me from from from from LA, they took me to Texas, they took me to Ohio, took me to St. Louis, all before I ever got released. I never got released. Now, when you got out was the first [ __ ] you did? Ah, you already know, man. It's been a long time. I went and got me some, man.
Did you just old girlfriends? Yeah. No, no, new girlfriend. New girl? Yeah. New girl. Did you know this girl? Make like do girls like contact you like while you're in prison? Yeah. Yeah. I got a lot of letters cuz you were famous. I was famous. American Gangster magazines. And they knew you were coming out too. ASIS magazine. Yeah. They knew I was coming home. They they they started to publicize that I had got a date. Wow. Weren't you the first one of the first guys to use social like a social marketing website? Yeah. Yeah. I'm the first prisoner to start a social network. Freewayenterprise.com. Y'all check it out too. Right now I'm ranked like 100,000 in the US. Uh sometimes I I go as low as 70,000. I'm trying to break down to like 30,000 in the US. And it's called freewayenterprises.com. Freewayenterprise.com. And what what is uh involved in this uh social network? Well, what I do is I give people an outlet for their music, for their videos. You know, like a lot of the sites now, they charging to put their videos up and I don't. They can put their pictures up. they can uh meet friends and share music and share pictures and and just different things uh uh you know that they do on on social networks. So I offer those services for him. Do you have any inside scoop on who killed Biggie? Man, somebody else asked me that. They already said that the Rolling Stone article readed they said the Rampart cops did it. Yeah. I I don't have a clue. You know, I was at I was at USP Lamp when Biggie got killed. I mean, I was I was uh disappointed that he came back to California. I thought that was a little crazy, you know, with what had happened to Pac. You know, I knew that it wasn't safe for him to be out here in California because guys in California are very revengeful. And uh when I heard that he was in California, I was like, what was he thinking about? It's kind of crazy that musicians started killing each other, you know?
Isn't that amazing? Yeah. I mean, that had never existed. We were just talking about this when we were in um Atlanta this weekend that they they were the first musicians and artists basically that would start killing each other. Wow. Wow. Has Tupac uh contacted you at all? Uh no, not recently. What are you asking? Did Tupac contact him yet? No, he has. What do you mean Tupac? You mean the new hologram Tupac? No. No. That people say Tupac's not dead. Nobody says that. That's not an idiot. A lot of people do. Like what's his face just said it the other day. big music executive. Uh, I'll tell you one second. Hold on. Yo, there's a photo of him on the autopsy table. It's real simple. Back in the days before they had Photoshop, Tupac's dead. JFK. Yeah, there's no doubt about it. They they killed that dude. So, uh, how many people are a part of your uh, freewayenterprise.com social media? I think I got right around 16 to 20,000 members right now. Oh, that's pretty cool. Well, I'll guarantee you have more today. I hope so. I need them. I need them. Y'all sign up. Help your boy out. Sign up and and also follow him on Twitter. It's free freeway Ricky on Twitter and uh and and and check that out. Now you I got 40,000 followers on Twitter. I'm doing you messaged me when you only had like eight. I remember you messed me like how I get more followers, man. I'm like I can't help you. You know you got I'm trying, man. I'm learning all this social stuff, all the social media, but I know they pay so much attention to uh Hold your boy in the background. What are you What are you asking me? His car. What's that? His car. Your What did you say? His car is parked right here. His car is
parked right there. Oh. Oh, that's fine. It's fine. Oh, don't worry about it, man. They don't This Pasadena, dude. Nobody's ever put out more music after they're dead than Tupac, right? Yeah. Hologram. Yeah, that hologram was creepy. Did you see that [ __ ] from Coachella? Yeah, I heard about it. I didn't see it, but I heard about it. He's It looked like Tupac had been lifting weights. Is that right? Yeah. They had him all MMA out. He was yolked. He looked like George St. Pierre. It was ridiculous. Seriously, had a six-pack. It was It was way more muscular than the regular Tupac. It was weird. It was like Tupac had just been doing kettle bells and crossfit and [ __ ] you know? I mean, these record labels are getting away with I mean, you know, they don't care who who wins the war, you know? They got both of them covered. Big Egie and Pac. Now, record labels nowadays, they're [ __ ] There's really they have to make a percentage of the artists that are out there performing live, right? I mean, how do they make money now? Yeah. Yeah. They do the 360 deals. Um, what does that mean? Well, they get a percentage of everything you do. You know, if you do a commercial on TV, they get a piece of it. If you uh do a contract, they get a piece of it. If you get a tennis shoe endorsement, they want a piece of it. They didn't used to do that. No, they didn't. They used to just be strictly music, but uh And what do they always get a piece of the live performance? Now they do. But they didn't always. No. Uh-uh. Really? So, this is all postmp world, right? Right. It used to be the the performance used to be all artists' money. What is the benefit of having a a music company now? It seems like with the internet it would almost be a hindrance to be marketing marketing marketing dollars cuz you know people believe what they see in here.
But once you get to a point like a Jay-Z or something, but he's already under contract so he can't get out. Oh, but what I was saying is if he started his own [ __ ] and started helping people promote themselves like he starts promoting people, you could enable people to become famous on their own. Yeah. You think Jay-Z wants to help people? Why not? I mean, I don't know. I mean, I think that that that that sounds logical, but if someone explained to him how much better his own life would be if he helped other people's lives and that it makes you actually feel better. Yeah. He probably try it. I don't know. But it's hard to sink that into people's heads. Everybody's so [ __ ] competitive. Yeah. Everybody wants to just get all the money and and and hog it for themselves. And they don't understand that someone else's success does not equal a failure for you. It's not like success that was yours and you didn't get it. This guy got it. It's not like there's only a certain amount of gold out there and like you you're telling people where the gold's at and they get and they're like, "Damn, that could have been my [ __ ] gold." No, I mean, someone else's success has nothing to do with you. That's a whole new human being. Yeah. But it's it's crazy. But most people don't want to help nobody.