The Immersion: Rick Ross, Nas & The Usual Suspects Posted by Dharmic X on 02/14/13 | Filed under Opinion, Rick Ross, The Immersion

Rick Ross was sadly one of the first rappers I ever listened to.

“Hustlin” came out in 2006 and took over the airwaves when I was in ninth grade. The beat was infectious—the first of many examples of Rozay’s impeccable beat selection—the hook repetitive and catchy, and the delivery slow and exaggerated. The remix featured Jay-Z and Young Jeezy, and kept the buzz for the song going strong.



Off that same album, “Port of Miami,” came the pretty solid follow-up single, “Push It”. While not nearly as popular as “Hustlin,” it still caught on and garnered some attention on the charts. My favorite song off the album was actually “Cross that Line”, mainly due to my unexplainable love for Akon hooks, a vestige of my juvenile musical preferences of the past.

Put it this way: This song is by far a better record than this one, and the hook on the former might even be stronger, but I like the latter one better.

Rick Ross seemed like he was doomed for the “one album” syndrome that seemed to strike so many artists at this time. The trend was to drop one smash single (with tremendous ringtone success), follow it up with a somewhat decent second single off the same album, and then never be heard from on a major level again (word to Rich Boy and Lil Scrappy). The lead single off “Trilla, “Speedin,” simply couldn’t capture the same momentum as either “Hustlin” or “Push It.” However, right before the album came out, he struck gold (literally, I suppose) with “The Boss,” a song which took off and led “Trilla” to a number one first-week placement on the Billboard charts.



At this point, I didn’t really like “The Boss.” In fact, I wasn’t much of a fan of Rozay, to be honest. “Maybach Music” was dope, the beats were nice as always throughout, but there was just nothing in the rest of the album to gravitate towards. I got bored of the repetition. And then following the albums came the drama.

The revelation that he had been a Correctional Officer. The vehement denial proven null and void by TMZ’s documents. The DJ Vlad lawsuit. The beef with 50 Cent that spiraled into viral video goodness. After being attacked with too many useless shenanigans, there is a switch in my brain, which shuts off on an artist. Lupe Fiasco has been the most recent victim of this mental block, but Rick Ross was one of the first. I just couldn’t take him seriously anymore.

I’d found more wholesome hip-hop music than the shit I was hearing from a fat rapper calling others “monkeys” to override the fact that he was a cop, not a drug-lord.

Nevertheless, for the rest of the hip-hop world, the hits kept coming. “Deeper Than Rap” might have been a commercial low-point for the Bawse (the only record not to go gold), but unlike some of 50’s other adversaries, he proved that he had some staying power left despite the indisputable tarnishing to his name.

Much like the Jadakiss album, the highlight on “Deeper than Rap” came on a collaborative effort… In fact, were it not for the collaborator, I wouldn’t have given a fuck about the song.



On the middle verse of “Usual Suspects,” Nas goes off, reflecting on his past exploits and looking back at how far he has come from the Queensbridge streets he was raised on. “And still my talent is yet to be challenged” he boasts in the opening bar, a claim that only a legend like Nas could make. The rest of the verse is brutally descriptive, creating imagery of the lifestyle he was leading before signing a record deal.

The verse described a time in my life that I could earnestly relate to, a point where “my mom [was] stressing college, but my crude sense of logic did allude to my empty wallet.” The year before, I had been making choices catered to the need to pursue immediate cash, rather than focus on the safe route of working hard and making it into college.

The most stunning bit of imagery for me was when Nas said, “I used to stand on rooftops with two glocks, figuring how do I turn my Timberlands to Crocs?” No, I had no interest in owning a pair of Croc shoes; I am currently wearing a pair of black Timbs I’ve owned since 2009 and am comfortable in them. I’ve also never owned one glock, forget about two of them. But I had paced around the rooftop of my old apartment building growing up, staring off at the tall buildings that surrounded me on Commonwealth Avenue and beyond, dreaming in abstract fashion of one day reaching the sky and becoming a man that everyone looked up to.

I have never believed that I was normal or ordinary.

After the song came out, even though we no longer lived in an apartment, I snuck my way back onto that rooftop. Ironically enough, I would take my SAT exams in the Boston Community Leadership Academy (BCLA), which was down the street from where I had grown up as a child. After the exam I would slide over to the old pizza store across the street from the apartment for a slice or two, and after eating, I would get into the apartment and walk the staircase up to the seventh floor, where the rooftop deck was. Standing there by myself, I’d blast “Usual Suspects” off of my cell phone speakers, that same ambition still coursing through my veins even though I was well off the delinquent path I had pursued foolishly the year before.

Clearly, I am a bit crazy. It’s no wonder that college has never suited me.

See Also:  The Immersion: The Death of Dilla, The Birth of Raekwons “OBCL II”