Rick Ross has been accused of ducking his namesake “Freeway” Ricky Ross, according to the former gangster.
Appearing on The Joe Rogan Experience, Freeway, who operated as a drug lord in the 1980s before his arrest in 1994, outlined his issues with the Miami rapper who controversially took his name as his moniker.
“Every time I’m around, he disappears,” he claimed. “These guys, when you got money, they don’t care if you beating women or making them lick tampons. Everybody fuck with you.
“He was on top of the world at one time. He was a correctional officer, but when he got some money they forgot he was a correctional officer. You got gangsters doing records with him. People will say they hate snitches but they doing records with a police officer.”
Rozay and the original Rick Ross have had a long-running dispute over the rapper’s use of his name.
Back in 2010, the former drug kingpin filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against the MMG mogul, claiming Ross used his name and likeness to further his music career.
The rapper later responded to the lawsuit by saying: “We just gonna let the people deal with that. It’s like owning a restaurant: you’re gonna have a few slip and falls. You get lawsuits, you deal with them, and get them out your way…sometimes you lose.”
A trial over the dispute eventually got underway in 2013, with the court ruling that Ross could continue using the name as his rap moniker.
The judge did highlight the influence that the real Ross and his life had over Rozay, though, saying: “We recognize that Roberts’ work — his music and persona as a rap musician — relies to some extent on plaintiff’s name and persona.
“Roberts chose to use the name ‘Rick Ross.’ He raps about trafficking in cocaine and brags about his wealth. These were ‘raw materials’ from which Roberts’ music career was synthesized. But these are not the ‘very sum and substance’ of Roberts’ work.”
The ruling added: “Roberts created a celebrity identity, using the name Rick Ross, of a cocaine kingpin turned rapper. He was not simply an impostor seeking to profit solely off the name and reputation of Rick Ross.
“Rather, he made music out of fictional tales of dealing drugs and other exploits—some of which related to plaintiff. Using the name and certain details of an infamous criminal’s life as basic elements, he created original artistic works.”
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