Joe Rogan Experience #2163 - Freeway Rick Ross

Narrator 0:00 (drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

0:04 The Joe Rogan Experience.

Joe Rogan 0:06 Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) Good to see you again, my friend.

Freeway Rick Ross 0:13 Man, it's been a long time.

Joe Rogan 0:15 It's been, yeah, like nine years. Yeah, we were talking about it.

Freeway Rick Ross 0:18 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:19 It's been a while.

Freeway Rick Ross 0:20 Yeah, yeah. I've been-

Joe Rogan 0:20 For people who don't know-

Freeway Rick Ross 0:21 ... I've been waiting.

Joe Rogan 0:23 (laughs)

Freeway Rick Ross 0:24 (laughs) I was like, um... You know, I dialed your number and it wasn't working no more. I was like, "Okay, he gonna- he'll-"

Joe Rogan 0:30 I've had about eight different numbers since then.

Freeway Rick Ross 0:32 "... he'll call me."

Joe Rogan 0:33 (laughs)

Freeway Rick Ross 0:33 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:34 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 0:34 I said, "He'll call me."

Joe Rogan 0:36 Yeah. For people who don't know, the real Rick Ross is not a rapper, just like your shirt says.

Freeway Rick Ross 0:40 And you know, you know who inspired that shirt?

Joe Rogan 0:43 I think I did.

Freeway Rick Ross 0:44 You did, you did.

Joe Rogan 0:44 (laughs)

Freeway Rick Ross 0:46 And you don't even know the whole story.

Joe Rogan 0:47 What's the story?

Freeway Rick Ross 0:49 Well, you know after that day you, you told me that I needed a shirt, right?

Joe Rogan 0:53 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 0:53 You know I was, I was really homeless then.

Joe Rogan 0:56 Really?

Freeway Rick Ross 0:56 You didn't know that part of the story?

Joe Rogan 0:58 I didn't know. Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 0:58 Well, I didn't go around like, "Hey man, I'm homeless." (laughs) So I was technically homeless. Uh, I was staying in a vacant apartment, me and my old lady and my two kids. And, uh-

Joe Rogan 1:11 Wow.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:11 ... when I told you that I, that I was doing bad, you was like, "Man, you need a T-shirt." And you know, when I left the show, I was a little hot. I was like, "Damn, that motherfucker told me I need a T-shirt and I, I'm, I'm, I'm fucked up. But, uh, he know I handle money, he know I'm a thinker. Why he didn't help me?" And so I'm walking down the street downtown and this kid come up to me and he was like, "Hey Rick, I heard you on Joe Rogan the other day." And I was like, "Yeah?" He's like, "Yeah, and I got a T-shirt idea for you." I said, "Oh shit, another one of those motherfuckers." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:50 (laughs)

Freeway Rick Ross 1:51 And I said, "What's your idea?" And he said, "The real Rick Ross is not a rapper." And I said, "Corny as a motherfucker," but I kept a open mind and I said, "Okay, let's do it." The kid did it. I go to him a couple weeks later and he give me 100 T-shirts and I sell the whole 100 the same day.

Joe Rogan 2:09 Wow.

Freeway Rick Ross 2:10 And then something popped in my head that said, "Why don't you call Joe?" That's when your number was still the same. And I called you, you called me to the show, and you put my T-shirt on. And the T-shirt went crazy. My PayPal... 'Cause, you know, I ain't saw you since then. So I never got to tell you, thanks for telling me to do a T-shirt, (laughs) even though I was mad at you. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 2:31 (laughs) Why were you mad at me?

Freeway Rick Ross 2:32 'Cause I was like, "Why the fuck nobody help me?" You know, I was looking for somebody to come and say, "Hey man, here's $100,000. See what you can do with it. A million dollars, see what you can do with it." That's what I- I was looking for when I got outta prison. I was like, "Somebody's gonna come and say, 'Man, I know you can handle money. Let's, let's do something.'" So I was looking for that. I was not looking for a T-shirt. But, you know, in, in one of my favorite books, it might come through the back door. Don't look at the front door, look at the back door. So I did that. And when you put that T-shirt on, man, my PayPal went like this here. (claps)

Joe Rogan 3:05 (laughs)

Freeway Rick Ross 3:05 And I was like... My, my old lady, she was like, "Man, that PayPal is going crazy." I was like, "That motherfucker broke." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 3:15 (laughs)

Freeway Rick Ross 3:15 I said, "Go check the bank account." And she went and checked the bank account and it's like $18,000, $20,000 in there and I was like, "Oh my goodness, we fixing a good apartment." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 3:26 Wow.

Freeway Rick Ross 3:26 So my whole life's changed from there. From there, I took that money and I did this.

Joe Rogan 3:34 You wrote a book?

Freeway Rick Ross 3:35 I wrote a... I had already wrote the book.

Joe Rogan 3:37 Oh, okay.

Freeway Rick Ross 3:37 I wrote the book in prison-

Joe Rogan 3:39 Oh.

Freeway Rick Ross 3:39 ... when I had a life sentence. You, you know, I wrote this book, this was kind of like my message to the world about what it takes to become a drug dealer, how you become a drug dealer. I wrote it for kids so they would know if they started to be a drug dealer, what they was gonna run into.

Joe Rogan 3:53 Like a how-to manual.

Freeway Rick Ross 3:55 Like a how-to manual.

Joe Rogan 3:56 (laughs)

Freeway Rick Ross 3:56 'Cause I said, "Nobody ever wrote a book about..." Well, I look at it like this, Joe. You know, we- we always talk to kids about why not to sell drugs, but why not give them all the information and they make their own decision? Okay, there's... You sell drugs, yeah, you might get a big house, you might get the cars, but at the end of that rainbow is some cuff links-

Joe Rogan 4:18 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 4:18 ... and a prison sentence. So I felt that-

Joe Rogan 4:22 You wanted to give them all the information?

Freeway Rick Ross 4:23 ... I wanted to give them all the information, so I wrote this. And I brought you one-

Joe Rogan 4:26 Oh.

Freeway Rick Ross 4:26 ... as a gift.

Joe Rogan 4:27 Beautiful, thank you very much. Your story is incredible. And for people who don't know, just because, you know, we- we've done a, we did a couple podcasts in the past, but just for people that don't know, you unknowingly were s-... During the whole Contras versus the Sandinistas, uh, war-

Freeway Rick Ross 4:46 Yep.

Joe Rogan 4:47 ... the United States government or some people inside the United States government were selling crack in the hood, and probably other places too. And they were using that to fund this war.

Freeway Rick Ross 5:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:01 They're using the money to fund this war.

Freeway Rick Ross 5:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:03 And you were the one who was moving the drugs.

Freeway Rick Ross 5:07 Correct.

Joe Rogan 5:07 And you-

Freeway Rick Ross 5:08 A lot of it.

Joe Rogan 5:08 And you didn't know. You had-

Freeway Rick Ross 5:10 Well-

Joe Rogan 5:10 ... no idea where-

Freeway Rick Ross 5:12 I was just a dumb kid from South Central, man.

Joe Rogan 5:14 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 5:14 I never read a book.

Joe Rogan 5:15 You couldn't read?

Freeway Rick Ross 5:16 I couldn't read at that time.

Joe Rogan 5:17 Which is so crazy. Uh, let me keep going. So you get arrested, you go to jail, you learn how to read in jail, learn how to become a lawyer in jail.

Freeway Rick Ross 5:26 Yep.

Joe Rogan 5:26 Figure out that they, the way they did you with three strikes was bullshit, because it's supposed to be three different instances-

Freeway Rick Ross 5:36 Yep.

Joe Rogan 5:36 ... of you being arrested. They used the three instances of whatever they tried to pin on you-

Freeway Rick Ross 5:41 Correct.

Joe Rogan 5:42 ... from one case. And so you got outta jail.

Freeway Rick Ross 5:45 I got outta jail.

Joe Rogan 5:46 You would still be in jail right now.

Freeway Rick Ross 5:47 Right now.

Joe Rogan 5:48 If you didn't-

Freeway Rick Ross 5:49 And if I would've listened to my lawyer, too.

Joe Rogan 5:50 Yeah. Wow.

Freeway Rick Ross 5:51 'Cause he told me that, uh, that law didn't apply to me 'cause... I don't know. You, you know... (laughs) It's funny 'cause I said my judge and my lawyer and the prosecutor couldn't read. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 6:02 (laughs)

Freeway Rick Ross 6:05 ... I mean, 'cause it was really plain and simple in the, in, in the law, the way they explained it. Um, the most important thing was an intervening arrest. Not the, that you get convicted three times, but was an intervening arrest. 'Cause they're saying that, (sighs) you know, if, if you get a kid and, and, and he does three different things and you whoop him one time, that's for all three. You know, now, if he does something and you whoop him one time and that whooping is over, and he goes, does it again, and you whoop him for the same thing again, now you've whooped him twice.

Joe Rogan 6:41 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 6:42 So the third time, that would be a three-strike.

Joe Rogan 6:45 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 6:45 And that's what the law meant, and they just couldn't understand that. Like, "Oh, no, that don't apply to you because you had a conviction in Texas and you had a conviction in Cincinnati and you had a conviction here." But they were all the same time you whooped me one time, man.

Joe Rogan 7:01 (laughs)

Freeway Rick Ross 7:02 (laughs) So I get two more whoopings before, you know, before it's a three-strike.

Joe Rogan 7:06 It's kind of a crazy story. I mean, it's a very crazy story, because yeah, you were a young kid and you-

Freeway Rick Ross 7:12 And it's getting more crazy, man.

Joe Rogan 7:13 Yeah?

Freeway Rick Ross 7:14 I, I've been having so much fun, Joe. Like, wow, man.

Joe Rogan 7:16 What's been going on?

Freeway Rick Ross 7:17 And you know what? And, and I owe you a lot of the credit, man, 'cause you really like, you kinda set me off, you know? You know, like, I don't know where I would've been had I not did that fucking T-shirt. You know what I'm saying?

Joe Rogan 7:29 (laughs)

Freeway Rick Ross 7:29 That fucking T-shirt paid our rent, man.

Joe Rogan 7:32 Wow.

Freeway Rick Ross 7:32 I mean, you know, and my fucking kids now are playing tennis, Joe. My daughter's so fucking good at tennis.

Joe Rogan 7:38 That's amazing.

Freeway Rick Ross 7:39 Man, she's like 20...

Joe Rogan 7:40 Well, you're a great tennis player.

Freeway Rick Ross 7:41 I was good. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 7:44 (laughs)

Freeway Rick Ross 7:44 I'm talking about like-

Joe Rogan 7:45 Really good.

Freeway Rick Ross 7:46 ... they saying she like Serena good.

Joe Rogan 7:48 Really?

Freeway Rick Ross 7:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:49 Wow.

Freeway Rick Ross 7:49 Like, and, and, and I try not to like, you know, because it's my daughter, so I gotta like keep myself honest. You know what I'm saying?

Joe Rogan 8:00 Mm-hmm.

Freeway Rick Ross 8:00 But I'm seeing her do things that I was doing at 16 and 17, and she's, just turned 12 and she's doing those things right now.

Joe Rogan 8:09 Wow.

Freeway Rick Ross 8:09 And I'm like, wow can she be this good? You know.

Joe Rogan 8:13 That's incredible.

Freeway Rick Ross 8:14 Yeah, so, I mean, I'm just having so much fun, man. It's like my life has been good. You know, if, um, you know, if I die today, you know, I wouldn't be mad. I just want to see them two grow up to be 20, 30 years old and... I've had a great life, man. I met some great people and... you know, and I had some, and I had some things happen to me too, it ain't all been rosy. You know, my documentary, I think... Was we working on a documentary when I did You The Last Time?

Joe Rogan 8:41 I don't know.

Freeway Rick Ross 8:41 Well, you know, they took the documentary from me.

Joe Rogan 8:43 What do you mean? What happened?

Freeway Rick Ross 8:45 Well, you know, we shot the documentary and, um, when it was time to put it out, we finished it, my two partners who put up most of the money got into an argument and I went with the one who I thought was right. So we go to court and the court ruled that, uh, Mark Levin and, and Mike, uh, Munger won in court, and they had all the say-so about the documentary and I had no say-so, no accounting. So they sold the documentary (laughs) to, uh, Al Jazeera, rented it to Al Jazeera, rented it to Netflix and I got zero dollars out of it. (clears throat)

Joe Rogan 9:22 Oh my God.

Freeway Rick Ross 9:22 The judge said I had no accounting rights, you know, no right to see how much money was being made, uh...

Joe Rogan 9:27 On a documentary on your life?

Freeway Rick Ross 9:29 Did I put money? I put, I took money, T-shirt money and put it into the documentary.

Joe Rogan 9:34 (laughs)

Freeway Rick Ross 9:34 I put about $15,000 of my own money into making it. We spent about, about $120,000 making the documentary, and here I am on Netflix, on the front page too. I made the front page of Netflix for like a year.

Joe Rogan 9:46 Wow.

Freeway Rick Ross 9:47 And I got zero dollars out of it. And then John Singleton, you know, he was working with me on the movie. He take all the stuff that we did from the movie and do this show called Snowfall, which was one of the biggest TV shows on TV, and I got zero dollars out of that.

Joe Rogan 10:04 What?

Freeway Rick Ross 10:05 Yeah, yeah. So, it ain't-

Joe Rogan 10:07 John Singleton?

Freeway Rick Ross 10:08 John Singleton did me like that, man.

Joe Rogan 10:10 No way.

Freeway Rick Ross 10:11 Yes. He went with me to the premier. Me and him went to the premier of the documentary together. The day of the premier I got my first books from that book there, and I had my demo books. He bought one for a 100 bucks which I thought was like, "Yeah, I'm gonna do good with this book." (laughs) "100 bucks for one book?" So, um, he took that book and he did Snowfall, and he didn't count me as an advisor or he didn't count me-

Joe Rogan 10:39 Nothing?

Freeway Rick Ross 10:39 ... in at all. Nothing.

Joe Rogan 10:39 Did you talk to him?

Freeway Rick Ross 10:40 I saw him one time. He changed his number.

Joe Rogan 10:43 (sighs)

Freeway Rick Ross 10:43 And I saw him one time about eight months before he died, and he was like, "Man, I owe you money." But you know, he was probably, he was in South Central LA in the wrong area. (laughs) And so he probably-

Joe Rogan 10:56 He probably said that just to get the fuck out. (laughs)

Freeway Rick Ross 11:00 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 11:00 I gotcha. Let me get outta here. (laughs)

Freeway Rick Ross 11:05 (laughs) So I totally understood. But, uh, other than that, you know, it's, it's been all right.

Joe Rogan 11:11 There's a lot of people that disappoint you in this life.

Freeway Rick Ross 11:14 They do. They do.

Joe Rogan 11:15 It's very unfortunate. I do not understand why people do that, because that you think you're getting over but you're not. That carries, that, that stays in your soul. It really does. It'll haunt you. It'll haunt you forever.

Freeway Rick Ross 11:28 Yeah, it's better-

Joe Rogan 11:29 You fuck somebody over-

Freeway Rick Ross 11:29 It's better to be good, man.

Joe Rogan 11:31 Yeah, it's better to be good. You know, you, you're a great story because a lot of people write people off, man. You know? And there's a lot of people out there in the world that want to think that because someone did something that's illegal or someone did something that's bad, that that makes them a bad person, and I think that's ridiculous. And I think you, y-

Freeway Rick Ross 11:51 I totally agree.

Joe Rogan 11:52 You can't imagine what it's like to be someone unless you've lived their life. You don't know the circumstances that they fell into, you don't know the, the life that they were born into. You don't know. You don't know, and there's a lot of good people out there that just get fucked.

Freeway Rick Ross 12:06 Made a bad mistake.

Joe Rogan 12:07 Made a bad mistake in a bad situation, bad neighborhood, bad life. A lot of things just-

Freeway Rick Ross 12:12 And people see things different.... you know?

Joe Rogan 12:14 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 12:14 What, what you think is bad, because of the circumstances that he comes from-

Joe Rogan 12:19 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 12:19 ... he doesn't think it's bad.

Joe Rogan 12:21 Right, 'cause it's normal.

Freeway Rick Ross 12:22 It's normal.

Joe Rogan 12:23 It's normal.

Freeway Rick Ross 12:23 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 12:24 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 12:24 Absolutely. And, and that was kinda the case, you know. Um, I wanted to be a drug dealer, you know? 'Cause all the pitchers I saw at drug dealing was, was... You know, look who all was doing drugs in the, in the '80s, everybody.

Joe Rogan 12:36 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 12:36 All the, all the entertainers, you know? So I, I, I wanted to be in entertainment.

Joe Rogan 12:39 Well, not only that, all the entertainers were talking about how they sold drugs. Jay-Z, Ice-T, Ice Cube, everybody.

Freeway Rick Ross 12:47 But they don't look at those guys as bad.

Joe Rogan 12:49 But it's crazy. Those guys, they could be on CNN. Those guys could be interviewed everywhere, the red carpet. Everybody loves them now. "I used to be a drug dealer." You go,-

Freeway Rick Ross 12:58 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 12:58 ... "That's amazing, Ice-T." (laughs)

Freeway Rick Ross 13:01 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 13:01 I don't know if Ice-T was a drug dealer. But you know, they rap about it. You know? I mean, it was a big thing, you know? And-

Freeway Rick Ross 13:07 And, but they don't believe... They don't... I guess they don't believe their stories.

Joe Rogan 13:10 They believe it. It's just okay because now they're popular artists. Now they're famous. So they broke through. So when you break through and you're selling millions of records and people coming to see you in arenas and everybody's singing along to your shit, somehow or another, it's okay. Like you're absolved of all your crimes and all your sins and you're welcome in society because you're very popular.

Freeway Rick Ross 13:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:31 It's very weird. It's very weird. So people are so quick to write people off. I think it's part of it is 'cause people are afraid to be written off themselves, so they wanna do it to other people. I really do.

Freeway Rick Ross 13:42 That's crazy.

Joe Rogan 13:43 You want some coffee?

Freeway Rick Ross 13:44 Some water. You got some water?

Joe Rogan 13:45 Oh, water's right here. There you go.

Freeway Rick Ross 13:47 All right.

Joe Rogan 13:48 It's, uh... You know, it's funny. We, uh, we've done a lot of work with, uh, this guy Josh Dubin, who used to work with the, uh, Innocence Project. And, um, we, just through this podcast, have gotten people out of jail that were wrongly convicted, a bunch of people.

Freeway Rick Ross 14:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:06 And then, (laughs) then we had one dude on who wasn't wrongly convicted, but he got convicted for 50 years for pistol-whipping somebody. A drug dealer who owed him money, someone who stole money from him, he pistol-whipped this dude, wound up going to jail for 50 years. Gets out, they, they reduced his sentence to 25 years. You know, Josh brought him in to show someone who can be rehabilitated, someone who's good. A month later, he gets out and cuts some dude's head off and gets caught. (laughs) He gets ca-

Freeway Rick Ross 14:35 Wow. (laughs) .

Joe Rogan 14:36 (laughs) He gets, he gets caught on, on, uh, security camera with a blonde wig on. Like just the whole thing was so crazy. But the dude was like, "We were hanging out with that guy that day."

Freeway Rick Ross 14:45 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 14:45 "Took him to the comedy club that night." It's like, it doesn't always work out. And then also, you know, the system itself, once you're inside, once you're a part of the system, man, that can fuck you up. You do 25... I mean, how many years did you do in there?

Freeway Rick Ross 14:59 I did 20 years and three months.

Joe Rogan 15:01 Wow.

Freeway Rick Ross 15:03 Yeah, so, so you know, the system is... And, and you're absolutely correct. The system can either make you or break you. You know, um, I was mad when I first went to jail. You know, um, but then, you know, I, I, I started analyzing my life. And, you know, I wanted to know how I got there. You know, "What, what are you doing here?" You know, "This wasn't part of the plan." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 15:25 Right. Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 15:25 And I, I just figured I made some bad turns. You know, I listened to some people that, uh, for the most part, loved me to death, you know, woulda, woulda died with me. And they gave me what they had to give me. You know? And what they had to give me was the drug game.

Joe Rogan 15:41 Yeah. It's just so crazy that you were connected to this enormous story with Oliver North and Ronald Reagan. You know, Ronald Reagan had to testify about it. You know? I mean, the whole thing was really insane. It was, it was an insane cultural moment 'cause I remember, I was young at the time, I remember watching it all play out on TV and seeing how this ins- insane story was playing out. That they were selling drugs? What? The government-

Freeway Rick Ross 16:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 16:13 ... was involved in the drug game so that they could fund-

Freeway Rick Ross 16:15 When Gary Webb came-

Joe Rogan 16:17 Mm-hmm.

Freeway Rick Ross 16:17 ... and told us about this, I could not believe it. You know? Like, no, not, not Ricky Ross. You're not... You, you're talking about Ricky Ross, right? The guy who, um, couldn't read in school. Uh, the guy who couldn't get outta high school, who was pretty good at tennis but he couldn't make it in tennis. You know what I'm saying? Now you're telling me that he was working with the White House, with Oliver North and George Bush and Ronald Reagan and-

Joe Rogan 16:43 Crazy.

Freeway Rick Ross 16:43 ... and then the CIA come to my cell and Maxine Waters come to my cell. And what? All these people? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 16:51 I know.

Freeway Rick Ross 16:52 It's just like... For me, it was, it was unbelievable. But even, even, even when I, when I, when I first went to jail, before all of the stuff hit the fan, you know, one of the guys that went to elementary school with me, he came up and he said, "Man, I heard the stories, but I couldn't believe it was you. You was the poorest kid in, in the school. Like you and your brothers used to change pants, and you had holes in your tennis shoes, and you used to put tennis balls on your, on your shoes so your feet wouldn't be on the ground, and that was really you." And I was like, "Yeah." He was like, "Man, you used to make millions of dollars?" So it was one of those stories that, you know, you really had to see it to believe it.

Joe Rogan 17:30 We had, uh, Michael Ruper on the podcast back when he was alive. Michael Ruper was the cop that-

Freeway Rick Ross 17:36 I knew Michael.

Joe Rogan 17:37 Yeah. Michael testified on C-SPAN. He was at one of those C-SPAN hearings and testified that he witnessed the CIA selling drugs in South Central Los Angeles. It, it is one of the craziest videos. Michael was courageous.

Freeway Rick Ross 17:55 I read his book.

Joe Rogan 17:56 Yeah. Which one?

Freeway Rick Ross 17:57 Uh, I don't remember. (laughs) It was so long ago.

Joe Rogan 17:59 Crossing the Rubicon?

Freeway Rick Ross 18:00 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:01 Yeah. He, he wrote that. And then he, he did that, that book... That movie rather, documentary, COLLAPSE, that scared the shit out of people.

Freeway Rick Ross 18:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:08 Did you ever see that movie?

Freeway Rick Ross 18:09 I didn't see the movie.

Joe Rogan 18:10 The movie was just him sitting there chain-smoking, sitting in a chair, explaining-... how the, the whole system was going to fall apart. Wind up not being correct.

Freeway Rick Ross 18:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:23 But it was, it was mostly about oil, and mostly about the way the economy is run and the way our, our government is... The, the way everything's structured. That, uh, we are on the verge of collapse. And he was telling people back then, like, "You better get ready. You better get ready for everything to fall apart."

Freeway Rick Ross 18:42 Well, I mean, if, if you, if you go in the streets right now and you see the homeless problem that we having around the country... You know, 'cause I- I travel the whole country now. You know, I, I'm doing motivational speaking, and so (clears throat) I'm working with different homeless organizations. One of the main ones I'm working with is out of Oakland, uh, Lulu House (clears throat) . And, uh, they're helping homeless people get off the streets. It is so bad out here, man. I mean, it's like-

Joe Rogan 19:11 Worse than ever.

Freeway Rick Ross 19:13 Like, some of these places that we go, and, and I would be afraid to go there without a gun. And it, it's like a third world country. It's like a jungle. They got cardboard boxes-

Joe Rogan 19:22 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 19:23 ... and-

Joe Rogan 19:23 Crazy.

Freeway Rick Ross 19:23 ... crates and tents and makeshift, uh-

Joe Rogan 19:26 Shantytowns.

Freeway Rick Ross 19:27 ... plastic and-

Joe Rogan 19:28 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 19:28 ... and, and it's like, miles of these places. And Oakland is, is, is-

Joe Rogan 19:32 Oakland's crazy.

Freeway Rick Ross 19:33 Oakland is terrible.

Joe Rogan 19:34 It's so crazy. I watched a video about it the other day, where these people were driving. They were documenting it, and driving down Oakland, down the worst areas where these people have these shantytowns set up, these tent town set up. And it's just open air, drugs and violence, and no police presence and no help and no nothing. And this is in America. And this is why we have $175 billion to send overseas to help them help people in Ukraine, help people in Israel. We don't have anything to clean this problem up, this massive problem?

Freeway Rick Ross 20:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:08 And all those people, all those people out there are wasted potential. All of 'em. All of 'em. Who knows how many of those people, if they had a little bit of help, if they got the right counseling, they got the right this, the right that, they started to get a pa- a path towards a good life, they could turn it around.

Freeway Rick Ross 20:26 I mean, look, I was like that.

Joe Rogan 20:27 Yes.

Freeway Rick Ross 20:27 You know, I was one of those people-

Joe Rogan 20:29 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 20:29 ... uh, uh, eight, nine years ago j- just outta prison. And, and, and Joe, you know, when I was in prison, I educated my... I read over 300 books while I was in prison, because I didn't want to come out and get into the same thing that put me in jail. So, what I wanted to do, I never had a job. You know, I never had a job. Right now today, I've never had... I mean, you know, I get paid for doing speaking engagements and stuff, but I'm saying I've never had a job where I punch a clock or I had to fill out an application. None of that stuff, because I couldn't fill out an application before I went to prison. And now, you know, I- I'm not gonna fill out... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 21:04 (laughs)

Freeway Rick Ross 21:04 Now, I'm not gonna fill out an application. But I had all this potential, but I had nobody to, to, to give me a boost, you know? To say... Uh, um, and, and that's one of the things that, that I was saying about Lulu House that they're doing, is they got housing for you where people get outta jail, they can go stay there for a while. They give 'em clothes, they feed 'em. Because sometimes you need those type of things to, to... You know, my break was y- you putting on that damn T-shirt. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 21:34 (laughs)

Freeway Rick Ross 21:35 Had I, had I not got that break, I don't know where I would be at right now. And, and you know, I wasn't gonna sit around and let my kids be hungry. You know, I had two, I had two new babies. Did... You knew I had two new babies when we did that show?

Joe Rogan 21:47 I don't remember.

Freeway Rick Ross 21:49 Yeah, I had two new babies.

Joe Rogan 21:50 Wow.

Freeway Rick Ross 21:50 I had... Uh, 'cause my kids right now, they're 13 and 12. So, at that time, they probably was like three maybe, four, four.

Joe Rogan 21:59 Right. Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 21:59 Like, three years old, two years old. So, so they was really new. So, me getting that money coming in was like heaven sent, you know? Like, yes, uh, you know, I- I got a way to get, get me some, some, some traction now. But without that kind of traction, you know... And most of those people, they not gonna have the opportunity to, to, to do a T-shirt for themselves. So, you know, we need to set up programs where, um, these people can get a fresh start.

Joe Rogan 22:28 Yeah. And that can be done. It could be done. You know, it's funny. We, we asked AI... We had a, a episode here where we were talking to ChatGPT. Have you done any of that? You messed around with ChatGPT or AI or anything like that? It's kind of-

Freeway Rick Ross 22:42 No, uh-uh.

Joe Rogan 22:43 ... kind of scary.

Freeway Rick Ross 22:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:44 Kind of scary. Yeah. It's... I think we're real close to it being, like, a life form. We're real close to there being an artificial life form that's more intelligent than human beings-

Freeway Rick Ross 22:54 Wow.

Joe Rogan 22:54 ... that we've created.

Freeway Rick Ross 22:55 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 22:56 But we asked it, like, "How would you solve the crime problem? How would you solve the, the, the homelessness and all the situations?" And it basically laid out this plan, and one of the things would be re-energizing communities and helping, taking places like these shantytowns in Oakland, set up community centers, police presence, do something to stop the crime, do something to try to educate people, do something... Community centers to give people a trade, a craft, something where they can move forward. There's... You know, there's a, a place out here, Loaves & Fishes, right? Is that what it's called? Um, we, we actually went to, uh, the, the house yester- There's, uh, a community that they have here. I think it's called, uh, Community First. Hold on a second, I'm gonna find out real quick. Yeah, this... We went there yesterday. I took my family there yesterday. And, uh, Community First! Village is this thing that, uh, my friend, Alan Graham, has put together and he's got... Right now, there's o- I think he's at like 1,000 acres. And they, they build homes for these people, they, they have all these programs for these people. They have gardens. They, uh... These people are making art and selling it. This one woman made a chess set and she sold it for $10,000. These people are incredible artists. There's a lot of creative, interesting people that just don't know what to do or where to turn, and they've been doing drugs their whole life. They're all fucked up. And they're homeless and they've got records and they don't know what to do.

Freeway Rick Ross 24:32 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:32 And he's, and he's helping them, and he's helping them in a really beautiful way. And...... it can be done.

Freeway Rick Ross 24:39 Well, I'd like to connect with him.

Joe Rogan 24:40 I will connect you with him.

Freeway Rick Ross 24:41 Yeah, definitely.

Joe Rogan 24:42 Yeah. He-

Freeway Rick Ross 24:42 'Cause that's the kind of stuff that I wanna do. I, I believe that, uh, we gotta give people a second chance, a third cha- I mean, I don't believe that we should be playing baseball with our lives, w- with other people. I mean-

Joe Rogan 24:52 Right, three strikes, you're out. Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 24:53 I mean, if it was your brother-

Joe Rogan 24:54 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 24:55 ... right? It was your brother-

Joe Rogan 24:55 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 24:55 ... would he only get three strikes, you know? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 24:57 Of course. Right, exactly. Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 24:59 If he- if your brother was on drugs, would you say, "Throw him in jail for the rest of his life?" If it was your kid?

Joe Rogan 25:03 And everybody should be your brother. The- all these people are just us. It's just us living different lives.

Freeway Rick Ross 25:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 25:10 It's just us with different circumstances and different things went wrong and different, you know, different people around you giving you bad advice, different bad influences, different everything. And for pe- this whole- the- one of the things that drives me crazy is the pull yourself up by your bootstrap shit. You know, like, shut the fuck up.

Freeway Rick Ross 25:30 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 25:30 People don't even have boots. Like, what are you talking about? That's so crazy. Like, you- you're supposed to do it yourself? People can't read. They don't know where to go. They don't have no positive influences. And we don't spend any money on that. I've always said, if you wanna make America great again- You really wanna make America great? Have less losers. How do you have less losers? Give more people a chance. You're never gonna have e- equal outcomes because some people work harder, some people are smarter, some people are luckier. There's a lot of factors.

Freeway Rick Ross 26:01 Correct.

Joe Rogan 26:01 But what you can have is change the amount of opportunity that people have, 'cause some people have zero opportunity.

Freeway Rick Ross 26:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 26:07 They have nothing. And if you give more people opportunity and more people help, you'll have more winners. You'll have more people successfully living in society, contributing, and everything gets better. Everybody rises up.

Freeway Rick Ross 26:19 And when people see- when people see other people win, they can duplicate that.

Joe Rogan 26:22 Yes. Yes. The rising tide.

Freeway Rick Ross 26:24 They can- they can duplicate a win 'cause I- I mean, you know, I- I keep going back to me, you know, having the opportunity to do this T-shirt. I had no clue to do a T-shirt. I wasn't thinking about doing no T-shirt. That was not in my plan to do no T-shirt, you know?

Joe Rogan 26:40 (laughs)

Freeway Rick Ross 26:40 So, sometimes they just need that little boost.

Joe Rogan 26:43 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 26:43 Uh, uh, the little vision, you know, from somebody else that, that, that's actually out here, 'cause, you know, when I came, when I, when I came home, I had no idea what the world was, you know, everybody had cellphones, you know?

Joe Rogan 26:56 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 26:57 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 26:57 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 26:57 I mean, they on computers. And I'm like- I'm- I'm like a fish out of water. I don't, I don't-

Joe Rogan 27:03 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 27:03 ... understand this. You know, I don't- I didn't even know my way around South Central f- for a while. It took me a while just to, you know, to get back knowing the streets and, and the-

Joe Rogan 27:12 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 27:12 ... the avenues 'cause so much stuff changed in 20 years. So, we give people all this time in prison, and like you say, someone was on drugs or- or whatever, and w- we gotta set up a system where they can readjust, you know? Most people go back to prison within the first three or four months.

Joe Rogan 27:30 Yeah. They don't know what to do.

Freeway Rick Ross 27:32 No, they don't know what to do.

Joe Rogan 27:33 I know people that went back to jail on purpose because the- the outside world was too confusing and scary for them, and they'd rather have the structure of being inside. They're like, "At least I get food. At least I know where I'm sleeping."

Freeway Rick Ross 27:44 They make it real easy for you in jail. They wash your clothes, turn the lights on for you, shower comes on. They give you soap. Toothpaste might be cheap. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 27:53 Yeah. (laughs)

Freeway Rick Ross 27:54 Might be some cheap shit, but...

Joe Rogan 27:56 What is it like finding out that you were a part of this enormous thing that was going on overseas?

Freeway Rick Ross 28:04 Shocking. I mean, amazing. First, you have to come to, you know, for me, I had to come to realization that I was really a part of that.

Joe Rogan 28:13 Let's tell people the scale. Let's talk about the money, the numbers that you were moving 'cause it was crazy.

Freeway Rick Ross 28:20 A- at my height, from '84 to '86, I was doing at least $1 million every day, and then I had days I'd do as much as $3 million. Say if it's like the first of the month- (whoosh effect) ... which was my busiest days, the first was like crazy busy, I would do $3 million that day.

Joe Rogan 28:39 Jesus.

Freeway Rick Ross 28:40 The second I might do two and a half million. The third I might do a million half, and then after that, it'd be $1 million every day, and then the 15, it would spike back up maybe $3 million, maybe two and a half million, and then it would start decreasing again.

Joe Rogan 28:54 And what did you do with the money?

Freeway Rick Ross 28:56 Buy houses, um, businesses. Uh, y- you know, when- when- when- when- when- when I started selling drugs, I started selling drugs 'cause I wanted to create businesses for me and my friends, you know? We- we couldn't get jobs. Nobody would hire us. So, what- what- what I figured, okay, start your own business. Why not open up your own business? So drugs, I couldn't go to the bank and borrow money. You know, South Central was redlined at that time, you know? They wasn't loaning money on houses and nothing in- in South Central at that time. We was totally redlined. Not like it is right now, you know? South Central is one of the hottest properties in- in the country, where if you got a house there, you can borrow money on it. They buying them. But at that time, it was redlined, so I didn't have any way to- to get money and- and drugs looked like a viable source of- of raising money.

Joe Rogan 29:46 Wow.

Freeway Rick Ross 29:46 So it was totally baffling to me to find out... Well, well, I never thought that I... I didn't know what $1 million was when I first started, you know? Like, when I started selling drugs, probably the most money I'd ever saw was probably like 200 bucks, 300 bucks at one time.

Joe Rogan 30:04 How quick did it come?

Freeway Rick Ross 30:06 Oh, it took- it took a little while. It took a few months. But you know-

Joe Rogan 30:10 That's (laughs) that's crazy though.

Freeway Rick Ross 30:11 You know- you know, when- when- see, when I started selling drugs, I was a tennis player, so I was very disciplined, you know? Ran, I did my runs. Uh, I would... My backhand is off, I'm gonna hit three, 400 backhands over and over and over and over again. I'm not gonna stop until I do my number. And I took that same mentality into the drug business. You know, I'm not gonna, uh, um, stop selling my drugs to take my girlfriend to the movies. You know, I'm- I'm not going to the club.... I'm not drinking, I'm not smoking, you know. I'm gonna stay up under this tree and wait till the money come. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 30:53 (laughs) It's funny, because that discipline would have served you well in anything that you had an opportunity to do.

Freeway Rick Ross 30:58 I just didn't know that.

Joe Rogan 30:59 Yeah, well, 'cause there's no way you could have known.

Freeway Rick Ross 31:00 Nobody ever... nobody ever sat me down and told me. I didn't have a coach. I didn't have a... My mentors sold drugs, robbed people, stole cars.

Joe Rogan 31:10 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 31:10 You know, those were my mentors. Those were the guys... Y- you know, my mom and my dad broke up at four months, when I was four months old, so I, I didn't really know my dad. Met him a few times. Uh, so the male figures that I saw was these street guys, you know, Crips, you know, Bloods. And, and when I started playing tennis, I was 18 years old, and I was old enough to know, like, "Oh, I ain't shooting nobody 'cause he wear red. I ain't shooting nobody 'cause he wear no blue." You know, I ain't with that. I'm not sticking no gun in nobody face to rob them. You know, I'm- I'm not doing it. So I had to find what I felt was a valuable way of making a living. And when I saw cocaine, shoot, they come over and they dancing, "We going to the club." "I, I need a 50." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 32:00 (laughs)

Freeway Rick Ross 32:00 "Me and my girl, we turning up tonight." So I was like, "Damn, they gonna give you $50 and you make them feel like that? I want a part of that."

Joe Rogan 32:09 Mm.

Freeway Rick Ross 32:09 "I want to be with that. I want to be the one to make them happy like that there, and, and I'm gonna get paid to make them feel like that there. I'm all in." And, and I dove in, you know, and, and I was in love, you know. I was in love with the business. And it w- it was... it wasn't-

Joe Rogan 32:26 Well, it was the first very successful thing that you'd been a part of.

Freeway Rick Ross 32:30 Yeah. I mean, I was a little successful at tennis, you know. Y- I made all-conference, all-city, and... but that didn't put no money in my pocket.

Joe Rogan 32:39 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 32:40 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 32:40 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 32:41 All the trophies was good, and, you know, the pats on the back, but, you know, now, I'm putting money in my pocket. You know, I can go by my mom house and say, "Hey, go pay your light bill."

Joe Rogan 32:50 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 32:51 You know, uh, "Put gas in your car." You know, my little brothers and sisters didn't have to go to school with holes in they tennis shoes no more.

Joe Rogan 32:57 You know what's really crazy, Rick? (clears throat) That here we are, in 2024, you know, this is, uh, 40 years later, right?

Freeway Rick Ross 33:05 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 33:05 Forty years. Forty years later and nothing's changed in terms of drug dealing. Nothing's changed in terms of drugs being legalized. They're still giving money to criminals, and, and particularly criminals in Mexico. I mean, that's literally what funds the cartels. And the fact that there's a demand in America (clears throat) and the supply is all brought over, or for the most part, a lot of it is brought over, by the Mexican cartels, we're just empowering them. We're just giving them money.

Freeway Rick Ross 33:38 And... and... and... and, you know, I, I thought about that a lot, about what you saying, and... because, i- in order to get rid of drugs the way they trying to do it, they would have to get rid of all three elements.

Joe Rogan 33:50 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 33:50 You know, you'd have to get rid of the- the manufacturers.

Joe Rogan 33:53 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 33:53 You'd have to get rid of the distr- distributors, and you have to get rid of the users.

Joe Rogan 33:57 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 33:57 Because if you get rid of one, the other two are gonna create that one again.

Joe Rogan 34:03 And I would like to know... I mean, I don't necessarily think you should do cocaine. I've never done it. I, I got lucky (clears throat) excuse me. When I was in high school, uh, my friend's cousin got hooked on coke, and I watched his life fall apart. And I was like, "Oh, I don't want nothing to do with that." I was always terrified that I was gonna do something that was gonna turn me into a loser. So, you know, I- I grew up poor, and we moved around a lot, and I always felt out of place. I never felt like I had anything going on in my life until I started doing martial arts when I was a kid, when I was, like, 15. That's when I really got into it. And then, from then on, I said, "This is the key to life. The key to life is discipline and focus, and I don't want nothing that's gonna take away my focus. Nothing that's gonna take away my drive." And I saw my friend's cousin, and I was like, "Goddam, he was a good dude, and now he's, like, a vampire. And now he's, like, hiding in his attic apartment, and they're all just, like, doing coke all the time and selling coke." It was horrible.

Freeway Rick Ross 35:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:00 So I never fucked with coke. But I know a lot of successful people that, every now and then, they do a little coke, you know? And I think it's like everything else. I think it's... I mean, there's a lot of thing... Alcohol is addictive. I like a little alcohol every now and then. I don't think it's that bad.

Freeway Rick Ross 35:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:17 You know, I don't think weed's bad. I don't... I don't think any of these things are bad. I think what's bad is bad behavior and bad thinking and not understanding the consequences of what you're doing. And the consequences of what we're doing by making drugs illegal is so crazy, because all we're doing... we're not reducing the demand, we're not reducing the supply. We're just empowering criminal elements in another country-

Freeway Rick Ross 35:42 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 35:42 ... that now are immensely powerful.

Freeway Rick Ross 35:45 And it makes people want to get involved because of the money.

Joe Rogan 35:48 Incredible amounts of money.

Freeway Rick Ross 35:50 You know?

Joe Rogan 35:50 And if you're living in Mexico, shit, you think South Central is poor. You know, try being born in these places where you live in these houses with no windows and dirt floors, and you see some dude driving by in a fucking beautiful car, you know, with a g- gold-plated gun, and that's... that's the fucking... that's El Jefe, and that's the dude. That's who you look up to. That's what you want to be. And we're empowering that. We're empowering all of that in this country by our s- stupid fucking laws.

Freeway Rick Ross 36:18 I agree. I totally agree what you saying. And, and I thought about that, that... what would happen if coke lost its value totally? You know, if it had no value? I... I mean, if it was worth what it's really worth. You know, it grow... it's a plant, so it grows wild, so it doesn't-

Joe Rogan 36:35 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 36:35 It doesn't take anybody to grow it. So, you're talking about it might be worth pennies, but it's the value that-

Joe Rogan 36:41 (sniffs)

Freeway Rick Ross 36:41 ... we create that attracts people to-

Joe Rogan 36:44 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 36:44 ... coke, uh, and... and... and-

Joe Rogan 36:45 It's also making it illegal, so it's difficult to get.

Freeway Rick Ross 36:48 Yeah, well, making it illegal-

Joe Rogan 36:48 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 36:49 ... creates a value.

Joe Rogan 36:49 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 36:50 Because if it wasn't illegal, people would just...... let it sit there or they would traffic it and then it wouldn't be worth, you know, it wouldn't be worth hauling because everybody would have it. Um, and, and the way I see it that if it loses its value, most people that I saw get started with coke start off selling, and they get curious. Well, what does it do for you? And they try it, and they don't... are not capable of not doing it anymore. I did it for about two weeks, you know. Uh, I, when I got up to like a ounce, my, uh, my cousins talked me into, "Hey, go ahead and try it. Go ahead and try it." 'Cause I had never tried it before. I had never smoked marijuana or nothing at that time. And they talked me into trying it, and when I looked up I had like $300. I had, I had about $9,000 worth of coke, and when we finished I had $300.

Joe Rogan 37:45 (Exhales)

Freeway Rick Ross 37:45 So what I realized is that they had tricked me into getting started so that they could get high.

Joe Rogan 37:52 Ah. (laughs)

Freeway Rick Ross 37:54 'Cause they didn't have any money. (laughs) So I vowed that day when, when I, when I, when I finally cleared my head up I said, "You know what? I'm never doing it again." And I never done coke again.

Joe Rogan 38:06 Yeah, it's not a good drug. But there's a lot of things that aren't good drugs. Y- do you, do you know who, uh, Dr. Carl Hart is?

Freeway Rick Ross 38:14 No, I never heard of him.

Joe Rogan 38:15 He's a professor at Columbia, and he's a, he was a, a clinical researcher, and he was a very straight-laced guy. Never did any drugs, no nothing. And when he started doing clinical research on different drugs and different things, he realized that all the things that we're being told about drugs are incorrect. A lot of it is over-inflated, a lot of it is exaggerated, and you know, he talks openly about responsible drug use. I mean this guy's a professor, legitimate academic, an intellectual. He talks openly about his own personal drug use-

Freeway Rick Ross 38:53 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:53 ... about how, you know, th- that these things can be used responsibly but that, that thought is never out there. That nobody says that. Nobody d- everybody tells you if you do drugs you're gonna be an addict. You do drugs you're gonna be a loser.

Freeway Rick Ross 39:05 Well, you know these people, it's so p- so many people are making money off of the illegal drug market.

Joe Rogan 39:09 Mm-hmm.

Freeway Rick Ross 39:09 I mean, y- if, if, if you just imagine how much money is being spent on incarceration, on probation, on policing-

Joe Rogan 39:18 Just prisons themselves. Privatized prisons.

Freeway Rick Ross 39:21 So, so these people don't want, they don't want drugs to, to, to, to, to not be valuable to the system. They want it to stay the way it is so they can keep making that money. So they do commercials and, and, and they market just like everybody else market their business to, to stay in business.

Joe Rogan 39:35 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 39:36 So, uh, those are the things that, that we're dealing with and we have to get people, um, that are more sensible, you know. Um, when I got home and, and, and found out that marijuana was legal, you know, (laughs) it was like, "Wow. Finally, we waking up." You know? Uh, um-

Joe Rogan 39:53 That was just 2016 though in California where it was made legal.

Freeway Rick Ross 39:57 Well when I got, uh, w- medically, medically it was legal when I got home.

Joe Rogan 40:01 Right. Yeah-

Freeway Rick Ross 40:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:02 ... it was med- medically legal in the '90s.

Freeway Rick Ross 40:03 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:04 I mean I got a card.

Freeway Rick Ross 40:06 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 40:06 I get headaches, man. (laughs)

Freeway Rick Ross 40:07 No, you, hey, you were smoking when I was on the show, you don't remember?

Joe Rogan 40:11 (laughs) Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 40:11 And, and that leads me to...

Joe Rogan 40:13 Uh-oh, you're in the business?

Freeway Rick Ross 40:14 I'm in the business.

Joe Rogan 40:15 Well, you know what's interesting? Is there's, there's cert-

Freeway Rick Ross 40:17 I bought you some gifts.

Joe Rogan 40:18 Oh, what do you got here?

Freeway Rick Ross 40:19 These are my new strains.

Joe Rogan 40:21 All right-

Freeway Rick Ross 40:21 You know I got a dis-

Joe Rogan 40:22 Big Boss has got strains.

Freeway Rick Ross 40:22 You know I got a dispensary.

Joe Rogan 40:24 You do?

Freeway Rick Ross 40:24 I got a dispensary.

Joe Rogan 40:25 Where?

Freeway Rick Ross 40:25 I'm a legal marijuana dealer. The state's on my... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 40:27 That's incredible.

Freeway Rick Ross 40:29 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 40:30 That's incredible.

Freeway Rick Ross 40:30 I told you we've been going a long time, man.

Joe Rogan 40:32 Wow. That's great to hear though, man. Look, I'm a big fan of that. Uh, in, uh, y- in Texas it's illegal but you can get this stuff called Delta-9 THC that's legal, and apparently it's legal federally, so you can just get that.

Freeway Rick Ross 40:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:47 It's just, it's very str- the whole thing's very strange. It's like there's worse things in this world than marijuana.

Freeway Rick Ross 40:54 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 40:54 My God, marijuana makes people calmer, makes people funnier, makes-

Freeway Rick Ross 40:58 Make you go to sleep. I can sleep.

Joe Rogan 41:00 Makes you go to sleep. Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 41:01 I can get some sleep.

Joe Rogan 41:02 It makes people more sensitive to other people, and it really makes you more compassionate. It does a lot of things for you.

Freeway Rick Ross 41:07 Oh man, when I went to my first... (laughs) 'Cause it all goes back to... I go to my first... When I get off parole, it's just crazy right? They having a High Time event in LA the day I get off parole.

Joe Rogan 41:21 High Times?

Freeway Rick Ross 41:21 High Time event the day I get off parole. So my boy from Cincinnati flying out to, to LA. So he flies out to LA, he comes by the house, he's like, "Man, you off parole. Let's go celebrate." And I was like, "Cool, where we going?" He's like, "Man, they having a High Time event coming." I was like, "Oh no, I don't want to get with that drug stuff, man." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 41:42 (laughs)

Freeway Rick Ross 41:42 'Cause you know I'm still... even though, even though I've been through all I've been through, I'm still under this impression that they have been in- instilling in us, oh, well marijuana's a gateway drug.

Joe Rogan 41:51 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 41:52 You know? So, um, I'm still tripping off of that. So I was like, "Oh man, I don't, I don't wanna go out there." You know, I start selling marijuana or get involved with the marijuana, next thing you know I'll be back doing coke. 'Cause I understood that I'm an addict. I was a addict to selling cocaine. I mean, I love... If I had a problem, my old lady start arguing, I'd just go sell some coke. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:15 (laughs) Well it's a success, right?

Freeway Rick Ross 42:17 So that made me feel better.

Joe Rogan 42:18 Yeah. You're, you're selling a lot. You're making a lot of money.

Freeway Rick Ross 42:21 And I felt better. I, I, I'd be like-

Joe Rogan 42:22 Why wouldn't you be addicted to that?

Freeway Rick Ross 42:23 I'll forget about uh, uh, your friend in the hospital sick.

Joe Rogan 42:26 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 42:26 Well I'm selling cocaine.

Joe Rogan 42:28 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 42:28 So now I forgot about him being sick. So, so coke had become like a crutch to me.

Joe Rogan 42:33 Mm.

Freeway Rick Ross 42:33 Where, where anything that, that, that went wrong for me, uh, uh, coke made it better. I mean, you know, like the commercials, you know?

Joe Rogan 42:42 Mm-hmm.

Freeway Rick Ross 42:42 Everything goes better with coke. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:44 (laughs) Which used to be made with coke.

Freeway Rick Ross 42:46 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:47 Which is crazy.

Freeway Rick Ross 42:49 So it had become like a crutch to me, and, and when I was going to the High Time event I was scared of that happening, and he was like, "Man, I bet you'll sell a lot of books and T-shirts."... I said, "Oh, oh, let's go." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 43:02 (laughs) I bet you did.

Freeway Rick Ross 43:03 So, man, I found myself out there, man, those people treated me so good. I was like, "What the fuck? I wanna be in this community." And after that day, you know, I've been chasing the marijuana business and, uh, in, in 19, uh, in 2016 when, when the federal, when they changed the law, I went there and they... You know, first they didn't want convicted felons th- to work in the industry.

Joe Rogan 43:25 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 43:26 I was like, "What the fuck? How you guys gonna say that?" And we the ones made it where the, where the industry is legal now.

Joe Rogan 43:30 (laughs)

Freeway Rick Ross 43:31 Ha- had the people not go to jail for selling marijuana, you never would have thought about legalizing it.

Joe Rogan 43:36 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 43:37 And they had me to argue to city council.

Joe Rogan 43:40 Wow.

Freeway Rick Ross 43:40 That issue.

Joe Rogan 43:41 That's crazy.

Freeway Rick Ross 43:42 So I got to argue the issue and, and they broke down, and now everybody around the country adopted that, uh, philosophy and they're putting convicted felons in the front of the line.

Joe Rogan 43:51 That's incredible. You know, the federal government is reducing it to a Schedule III now.

Freeway Rick Ross 43:56 Yeah, they should just totally leave it alone.

Joe Rogan 43:58 100%, but at least it's a Schedule III. Which is, what is Schedule... What's also listed in Schedule III?

Narrator 44:07 Um, I think, uh, cocaine might be actually.

Freeway Rick Ross 44:09 (laughs)

Narrator 44:09 It's like medically-

Joe Rogan 44:10 Just in case.

Narrator 44:10 ... well, it's medically, uh-

Joe Rogan 44:11 Do you know that Coca-Cola is one of the largest, uh, importers of coca leaves? That coca leaves still flavor Coca-Cola.

Freeway Rick Ross 44:21 I didn't know that.

Joe Rogan 44:22 And that there's a plant that supplies Coca-Cola, there, there's a plant that takes the cocaine out of the coca leaves, creates this, uh, flavonoids, these flavors, that they... That's why Coke tastes better than Pepsi.

Freeway Rick Ross 44:36 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 44:36 Sorry, Pepsi.

Narrator 44:38 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 44:39 This is, this is... If you're a, a Coke fan, this is like the flavor that Coke has, is flavored partially at least by cocaine.

Narrator 44:48 Coke is Schedule II.

Joe Rogan 44:50 Interesting.

Narrator 44:50 Schedule III would be like, uh, it says ketamine, testosterone, anabolic steroids, codeine.

Joe Rogan 44:56 Oh, mild shit.

Narrator 44:58 Some sort of, yeah, some stuff.

Joe Rogan 44:58 Well, codeine ain't that mild. That's interesting.

Narrator 45:00 Less-

Joe Rogan 45:00 Tylenol with codeine.

Narrator 45:02 Products that are less than 90 milligrams of codeine.

Joe Rogan 45:03 Okay. So then, then that's where marijuana's gonna be, which is still ridiculous. What schedule is Ambien? That shit's fucking scary. What schedule's Adderall? What's Adderall? Well, it just said it right there, Jamie.

Narrator 45:16 I bet.

Joe Rogan 45:16 Yeah. If you click on what schedule's Adderall. Right, right above? What schedule drug is Adderall?

Narrator 45:21 Uh, let me see, let me see.

Joe Rogan 45:21 Yeah.

Narrator 45:22 II.

Joe Rogan 45:22 Schedule II. That stuff is fucking crazy. I know a lot of-

Narrator 45:26 Ambien's IV.

Joe Rogan 45:26 ... people hooked on that.

Narrator 45:28 Schedule IV.

Joe Rogan 45:29 Schedule IV? Less... That's funny. Xanax. Xanax is IV? I know a lot of people who've been fucked up by Xanax.

Freeway Rick Ross 45:35 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 45:36 Valium, uh, I know a lot of people who've been fucked up-

Freeway Rick Ross 45:39 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 45:39 ... by Valium.

Narrator 45:40 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 45:40 Fucked up by Valium.

Freeway Rick Ross 45:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:42 And then that stuff is less il- less illegal-

Freeway Rick Ross 45:46 Man.

Joe Rogan 45:46 ... than marijuana. It's crazy. We're so silly. I mean, it's the little baby steps towards legalization. You know, uh, that's one thing that California has above Texas for sure, is the, the legalization of marijuana. It should be legal federal-

Freeway Rick Ross 46:02 But they tax the, they tax the shit out of us in, in California, man.

Joe Rogan 46:04 I wish they did, and I wish they did something good with it. I wish they took those taxes and cleaned up Oakland.

Freeway Rick Ross 46:08 They, they give, they give-

Joe Rogan 46:10 I wish they did.

Freeway Rick Ross 46:10 ... it to the police department.

Joe Rogan 46:11 They don't even do that, man. They're defunding the police department in California by $150 million with the new budget proposal.

Freeway Rick Ross 46:16 Oh yeah?

Joe Rogan 46:17 $150 million, all the fucking problems they have, and they're defunding. They, what they should do, if you wanna tax... Look, if you wanna tax it, look, you're making plenty of money, I'm sure. A lot of people wanna buy weed. Take that money and fix the fucking problems. Use that money. Use that money to fix the problems. Stop with all the bureaucracy. Stop with all these fucking useless people that are getting paid for these pro- like, the homeless programs in Los Angeles. It's just a scam. It's just a bunch of people making money, some of them upwards of $250,000 a year, to fix the homeless problem. And they're not, they're not doing jack shit.

Freeway Rick Ross 46:55 Yeah, I could fix the homeless problem in a couple of months.

Joe Rogan 46:57 You think so?

Freeway Rick Ross 46:58 Absolutely. Just go out and build some nice houses and, and let them stay there. And tell them they don't have to fill out the application. You know, most of the people that's, that's homeless, they can't, they can't... The applications, you know, when you-

Joe Rogan 47:08 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 47:09 ... when you run their credit, their credit is fucked.

Joe Rogan 47:11 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 47:11 You know, they didn't pay a light bill, their phone bill, and-

Joe Rogan 47:14 Taxes, yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 47:15 Taxes. Whatever, you know?

Joe Rogan 47:16 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 47:16 So their credit is fucked up and, and, and, uh, I mean, the problem can be solved. You know, but it gotta be somebody who say, "You know what? We gonna throw a few, maybe $50 million, $100 million into building some, some low-income houses that we, and we also gonna have some treatments, you know, where people get treated, where they get job training." Uh, it's just so many things. I mean, I don't know, when I, even when I look at, you know, someone who are, are supposed to be millionaires, billionaires, you know, the way they... I don't know. I, I would, I would look at this problem and I would solve it totally different. Um, 'cause even though I like making money, I'm not, I'm not like typical people. They, they get the money and they wanna harness it and they just want it for themselves so that they can look down on everybody else. I don't think money's supposed to be used like that. I think money is supposed to be put back into the community where the, the community can rejuvenate and the money circulates into the community.

Joe Rogan 48:11 And that makes everything better for everybody.

Freeway Rick Ross 48:13 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 48:14 Yeah. You don't wanna be the only one that's doing well.

Freeway Rick Ross 48:17 No.

Joe Rogan 48:17 That's not a good place to be in life.

Freeway Rick Ross 48:19 Well, you know, a lot of people are like that, you know, uh-

Joe Rogan 48:21 They're fools. It's just a foolish way of thinking.

Freeway Rick Ross 48:24 When you look at the way, you know, the situation with Puff Daddy, you know. He had money so he treated everybody else like shit, you know?

Joe Rogan 48:29 Mm-hmm.

Freeway Rick Ross 48:29 Like, you know, lick, lick, uh, uh, a tampon, you know. Like, what the fuck?

Joe Rogan 48:34 (laughs)

Freeway Rick Ross 48:34 What kind of crazy motherfucker would want somebody to lick a tampon?

Joe Rogan 48:37 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 48:38 You know, I mean, that's how you get your kicks? You know, I get, I would get my kick by seeing somebody do good. Like, "Look at that motherfucker, he doing good."

Joe Rogan 48:45 That's a good kick.

Freeway Rick Ross 48:46 "That's my, that's my motherfucking boy."

Joe Rogan 48:47 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 48:48 You know, uh-

Joe Rogan 48:48 That's a good kick. I like that kick.

Freeway Rick Ross 48:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:50 Me too. Some people get a kick off of degrading people. They get a kick off of being the most powerful person.

Freeway Rick Ross 48:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:56 You know, and that's a, that's an evil inclination that is built into humanity for some reason. There's always been that impulse for some people to do that.It's very unfortunate.

Freeway Rick Ross 49:08 I think power, you can hide your power. You don't even have to show it.

Joe Rogan 49:10 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 49:10 You can be powerful and, and nobody even know you powerful 'cause you don't have to use it. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 49:14 Yeah. (laughs)

Freeway Rick Ross 49:17 That's when you really powerful, when you don't have to use it. You're like, "See, I'm so powerful, don't nobody even make me use it."

Joe Rogan 49:22 Yeah. And you're using your power for good. Yeah. It's, um... I mean, there's a lot of people with some good ideas in this world, and I think we're m- You know, there's a lot of people that are very down on the future. Uh, uh, uh, I don't think that helps anybody. I think there's a real possibility that we come out of this better. It's just, we have to think right and act right.

Freeway Rick Ross 49:42 And then sometimes you gotta go to the bottom, you know?

Joe Rogan 49:44 Mm-hmm.

Freeway Rick Ross 49:44 They say, they say, uh... One of the books I read, it said that the, the end of the storm starts at the worst.

Joe Rogan 49:52 Mm-hmm.

Freeway Rick Ross 49:53 You know, when you get to the worst-

Joe Rogan 49:54 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 49:54 ... and you, if you can bear the worst-

Joe Rogan 49:55 That's the beginning of the end.

Freeway Rick Ross 49:56 ... that's the beginning of the end.

Joe Rogan 49:57 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 49:57 So, you know, we gotta go through the worst, you know, everybody buckle up. And, and, you know-

Joe Rogan 50:02 I think that has to happen too. I really do. I think people have to th- see things fall apart before they realize, like, "Oh, we had it good and we didn't even realize we had it good."

Freeway Rick Ross 50:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:11 And now we're fucked.

Freeway Rick Ross 50:12 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 50:12 And now we have to (laughs) we have to turn this shit around. You know?

Freeway Rick Ross 50:17 We've been going the wrong way.

Joe Rogan 50:18 We've been going the wrong way for sure, but we've been led the wrong way, and we've been led the wrong way by people, like what we were just talking about before, that use their power to subjugate others, to keep oth- everybody else down.

Freeway Rick Ross 50:29 And then we got all these old motherfuckers who, who been running things for, for-

Joe Rogan 50:33 Mm-hmm.

Freeway Rick Ross 50:33 ... too long, you know? Like-

Joe Rogan 50:35 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 50:35 ... why do you stay in the Senate and Congress for 30 years, you know? Like...

Joe Rogan 50:39 Did you ever look at the Founding Fathers, how young they were?

Freeway Rick Ross 50:42 I haven't.

Joe Rogan 50:43 It's crazy. One of them was 18, one of them was 21. These are the people that started the Declaration of Independence. They, they signed it. These are the people that were the Founding Fathers of this experiment in self-government that you and I both live in. They were young as fuck, man.

Freeway Rick Ross 51:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:01 And now you look at the people that are in Congress now, you look at people like... You know, like the president, he, he can't even form a sentence. He doesn't know the difference between Iraq and Afghanistan when he's talking to foreign leaders. He's out of it.

Freeway Rick Ross 51:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:14 He's too old.

Freeway Rick Ross 51:15 Yeah, it's crazy.

Joe Rogan 51:16 Too old. And then, you know, Mitch McConnell, he just locks up when he's talking to people. Just like, he's too old. He shouldn't be doing that. He's not, not trying to make the world a better place, he's just trying to not let go of his position of power. And that's with a l- a lot of them, and they get there through years and years and years of being deeply embedded into the system, and they, they know how to work it. And next thing you know, they're the top dogs.

Freeway Rick Ross 51:41 I think they all should go spend a couple days in jail, you know?

Joe Rogan 51:43 Wouldn't be bad. Just go.

Freeway Rick Ross 51:44 Yeah, just go sit there for a couple weeks, you know, and then see what it's like. G- go in the ghetto, go in the homeless camp, let them s-

Joe Rogan 51:49 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 51:50 ... let them live in a homeless camp for, for a week. You know, eat the food that they eating.

Joe Rogan 51:53 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 51:53 And then you really, you, you really become an American. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 51:58 (laughs) That's crazy.

Freeway Rick Ross 51:59 I think if you, if you're not experiencing real life, then you don't know what real life is.

Joe Rogan 52:05 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 52:05 You know, if you don't see it, you don't touch it. You know, some of these people never, never go out to the communities.

Joe Rogan 52:10 Right, they go straight from universities right into jobs, in the system, they work their way up the ladder. Yeah, and then they have disdain for, for the common people, which, it could have been them. You know, different roll of the dice, different circumstances, different life.

Freeway Rick Ross 52:27 Different parents.

Joe Rogan 52:28 Different parents, different place you live, could have been them.

Freeway Rick Ross 52:31 Different brother.

Joe Rogan 52:31 Different everything.

Freeway Rick Ross 52:32 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 52:32 Could have been them. Could have been them. And people don't want to think that. They want to, they d- genuinely want to believe they're special, which I think is a trap.

Freeway Rick Ross 52:41 Well, we all special.

Joe Rogan 52:42 Yeah, but I mean, special different than everybody else.

Freeway Rick Ross 52:45 Yeah. When you start to look down on everybody else, that's bad.

Joe Rogan 52:48 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 52:49 You know, when you feel privileged, uh, for no reason, you know?

Joe Rogan 52:52 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 52:52 And if you go out and you do something special, you know, then maybe you special, you know? But if you're not doing anything that anybody else can't do, then you know better than nobody else.

Joe Rogan 53:01 Well, there's definitely special people, but special people are just people. And they're just people that have put an extraordinary amount of effort and time, and maybe they have just a God-given talent, and they've achieved incredible things.

Freeway Rick Ross 53:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:13 And those people also s- Th- what they do is they elevate everyone around them, 'cause they make you realize, like, "Wow, my watermark was here, now it's here."

Freeway Rick Ross 53:23 Those are the people that I consider special.

Joe Rogan 53:25 Yes, that's abso-

Freeway Rick Ross 53:25 If you can make other people-

Joe Rogan 53:26 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 53:27 If you can lift up other people-

Joe Rogan 53:28 Yes.

Freeway Rick Ross 53:29 ... then you are special.

Joe Rogan 53:30 Yeah, I mean, there's so many people just by virtue of their success and the example that they set, they changed the course of so many people's lives 'cause they look to those people for inspiration, and it gives them the energy to go out and do things.

Freeway Rick Ross 53:41 Yes, yes.

Joe Rogan 53:41 It gives them the energy, the thoughts, the, the, the... Just the idea, like, "That guy did it? I can do it. That's what I want to do. I want to succeed." And it could be a great thing or it could be what happened to you. It's like the wrong inspiration.

Freeway Rick Ross 53:57 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 53:57 You know, you say, "That's what... These guys are succeeding. We don't have shit. They have money. I can do that." And then you do that. But, you know, that could be... In your case, it turned out to not be good, but in other peoples' cases, in different things with different examples of people that are succeeding. Like, you could have done what you did in the drug game, if you had better opportunities, in fucking anything.

Freeway Rick Ross 54:22 I agree.

Joe Rogan 54:23 And it's the e- genui- genuinely, it's the discipline of an athlete, which is an extraordinary discipline, the discipline to force yourself to do things you don't want to do. You develop that ability and th- the ability to, like, really hone in and focus and have drive and, and a work ethic, that translates to everything.

Freeway Rick Ross 54:42 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 54:43 Everything. You just got to find a different thing to do.

Freeway Rick Ross 54:46 Yeah, yeah. And now with, with the internet, it makes, it makes it better, but we got to get people to where they understand that they should try to do it.

Joe Rogan 54:55 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 54:56 You know, because once you get beat down, once you get beat down, you feel like, "Why should I try?"

Joe Rogan 55:02 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 55:02 "I'm gonna get beat down again."

Joe Rogan 55:04 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 55:04 "You know, I don't, I don't have the support, you know, I don't have the, the crutch to hold me in position until I can build my strength up to, to, to be on my own." And-

Joe Rogan 55:13 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 55:14 ... I, I think that...We, as a society, have to, uh, give this to our children because if we don't, our children are gonna be in trouble. (clears throat)

Joe Rogan 55:22 Yeah. That's true. Yeah, our entire society, and our society, I mean, uh, we're all supposed to be one team. This is, this, especially-

Freeway Rick Ross 55:32 Yes.

Joe Rogan 55:32 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 55:33 Yes. W-

Joe Rogan 55:33 I mean, if, if, if we have countries at all, if there is a country... I mean, if you believe in America, you believe in any country, that's supposed to be your team. So, everybody is supposed to be on that team together.

Freeway Rick Ross 55:44 In-

Joe Rogan 55:44 Everybody.

Freeway Rick Ross 55:44 ... s- supposed to be trying to make the team win.

Joe Rogan 55:46 Yes. The whole team.

Freeway Rick Ross 55:48 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 55:49 And that can be done.

Freeway Rick Ross 55:50 A- and, and no man left behind.

Joe Rogan 55:52 No man left behind, yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 55:53 And if something is wrong, you know, we gotta look out for the ones, that, you know-

Joe Rogan 55:56 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 55:56 ... that are slow.

Joe Rogan 55:57 Th- that's the sign of bad leadership in our country, that that's not being addressed. That's, that's bad leadership. That all they're doing is serving the interests of all the wealthy people that got 'em into power in the first place.

Freeway Rick Ross 56:08 And the wealthy people, you know, once you get wealthy, you should wanna be a philanthropist. I mean, what, what ... in, in, in, in my opinion, one of the greatest things that a person could do is help somebody else. You know?

Joe Rogan 56:20 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 56:20 I mean, that, that is so ... to me, that's, like, so fulfilling. You know, you know, I- I ... people tell me, um, you know, when I do stuff for people, they be like, "Oh, man, thank you, thank you." And I be like, "Thank you?" Said, "I should be thanking you 'cause you just made my day, you know?" (laughs)

Joe Rogan 56:34 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 56:34 I got off by doing that. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 56:38 (laughs) Yeah, that's what people don't realize, like, doing something nice for people is selfish.

Freeway Rick Ross 56:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:42 'Cause it makes you feel good.

Freeway Rick Ross 56:43 I be feeling selfish. They, they-

Joe Rogan 56:44 (laughs)

Freeway Rick Ross 56:44 Like, they might ask me for a picture in the airport and I be like, "Sure." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 56:48 (laughs)

Freeway Rick Ross 56:49 "You wanna take a picture with me?" And, and-

Joe Rogan 56:51 Right. You make them feel good, but they make you feel good too.

Freeway Rick Ross 56:53 You make them feel good, and then you give them some good advice.

Joe Rogan 56:55 Yes. Yes.

Freeway Rick Ross 56:55 And, and, and it's like, wow, what a, what a feeling it is, you know? So, I don't know. It's just a ... you know, I- I just come up different, you know, um, and I'm from the streets, you know? I'm, I'm from where people kill you for colors. You know? Some of my first heroes was Tookie Williams, you know, I used to look up to Tookie Williams. I wanted to be like Tookie. I didn't want to be a Crip. You know? So, to, to, to now see the world to where I should be trying to save lives, you know, is a total different mentality than when I was 12 years old, 11 years old, you know, and-

Joe Rogan 57:35 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 57:35 ... and I'm seeing guys fight over a color and, and, and stuff. That was 'cause I was ignorant. I didn't know any better.

Joe Rogan 57:40 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 57:41 You know? But once I was educated to the facts that, hey, we're supposed to be helping save lives, not destroying a life.

Joe Rogan 57:49 What was it like once you got into jail and learned how to read and then started reading and recognizing that the world was just a much different place than you thought it was?

Freeway Rick Ross 57:59 Mind-blowing. Mind-blowing. I hate that nobody ever sit me down and explained to me how, how exciting book reading was. And, and, uh, you know, the books I started to read was about making money. I gotta, I gotta (laughs) tell you that too. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 58:19 (laughs)

Freeway Rick Ross 58:19 There was about either making money or how the mind works, you know, how to, uh, how to think, you know, how to think successfully, how to have faith in yourself, how to believe in you, you know, because when, when you don't believe in yourself, it's hard to believe in anything.

Joe Rogan 58:37 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 58:37 You know? If you believe you're a loser, then you think everybody else is losers as well.

Joe Rogan 58:43 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 58:43 So, um, having these experiences in these books, you know, um, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, like, just blew my mind, you know? Like, fuck, people actually think like this here? You know? Like, you can think and, and grow rich? You can use your mind to create and, and you only really need one idea that could, could make you a fortune, you know? That you shouldn't be allowing other people to feed your mind their ideas, you know, what they think you should be, you know? Uh, because when I was coming up, other people affected the way I thought, you know? Like, "Man, you play tennis? That's a girl sport." You know? Um, "You, you, you write? You reading a book? Why you reading a book? You need a gun." You know? So, uh, uh, these things start to shape your mind and, you know, when I found out from James Allen that I am the gardener of my mind and I have to keep my mind weed-free. You know, I had to pluck the weeds out as soon as a negative thought pop in. 'Cause you know even since I've been home, you know, they done offered me coke. I done had a few guys come up, "Oh, I was just playing." (laughs) You know, nudge you on the shoulder, "I was just playing, just see, see where you was at with it." Uh, so, soon as those things happen, you gotta get rid of 'em. You know, because when Blandon approached me about selling drugs again, I wasn't planning on selling drugs no more. But when he kept offering it, and, and when I listened to the tape in court, man ... You know, I'm in court. We going to trial and, and they playing the tapes of our recorded phone calls, and he says, "Rick, I got 700 kilos." The first thing that popped out of my mind, my mouth, and I don't even know I said this, "How much?" First thing, and I done told myself, I- I have promised myself, Joe, I promised myself and my kids, "I'm never selling coke again." But when he asked me that question on that tape, which is probably what convicted me-

Joe Rogan 1:00:57 Wow.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:00:58 ... I said, "How much?"

Joe Rogan 1:01:01 Wow.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:01:01 Unconsciously. I, I think I, I think I had, had fallen asleep behind the wheel.

Joe Rogan 1:01:07 So, you had already decided to get out?

Freeway Rick Ross 1:01:09 I was out. I hadn't sold drugs in five and a half, six years.

Joe Rogan 1:01:14 Really?

Freeway Rick Ross 1:01:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:16 And the conversations on the phone are what got you convicted?

Freeway Rick Ross 1:01:20 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:20 Was he wearing a wire?

Freeway Rick Ross 1:01:22 He was wearing a wire.

Joe Rogan 1:01:23 Oh, my God.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:01:23 Yeah. He was recording the conversation. He was a... he had, he had, uh, he had already become a government informant.

Joe Rogan 1:01:26 Oh, my God.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:01:28 And I asked him, "How much?"

Joe Rogan 1:01:30 Oh, my God.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:01:31 They played that over and over in the courtroom. "How much? How much?" I just kept hearing myself say, "How much?"

Joe Rogan 1:01:37 Oh, my God.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:01:38 And I just put my head down because I knew that, uh, that was a crucial mistake.

Joe Rogan 1:01:43 (sighs) Wow.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:01:46 Even though I didn't, I didn't bite that time. I didn't bite.

Joe Rogan 1:01:49 But you did say, "How much?"

Freeway Rick Ross 1:01:50 I did say, "How much?"

Joe Rogan 1:01:52 That's all it took.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:01:52 That's all it took, so that showed an interest.

Joe Rogan 1:01:54 Oh, my God.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:01:55 'Cause if I would've said, "Oh, I don't fuck with drugs no more, but you know, I'm talking-"

Joe Rogan 1:02:01 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:02:01 "... to my partner."

Joe Rogan 1:02:02 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:02:03 "You know, I'm talking to the homie."

Joe Rogan 1:02:04 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:02:04 "We chopping it up."

Joe Rogan 1:02:06 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:02:07 Old times.

Joe Rogan 1:02:08 Just-

Freeway Rick Ross 1:02:09 Good times.

Joe Rogan 1:02:09 Out of curiosity, how much? (laughs)

Freeway Rick Ross 1:02:11 Good times, you know? Sound like good times.

Joe Rogan 1:02:13 I don't sell drugs anymore, but outta curiosity.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:02:16 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:02:17 What kind of figures are we talking about here?

Freeway Rick Ross 1:02:20 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:02:20 Yeah. It's exciting too, right?

Freeway Rick Ross 1:02:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:24 That's, uh, also a part of the problem, right?

Freeway Rick Ross 1:02:26 Oh, yeah. Selling drugs-

Joe Rogan 1:02:26 Your life gets mundane.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:02:28 Selling drugs is exciting, man.

Joe Rogan 1:02:29 I bet.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:02:29 The girls?

Joe Rogan 1:02:31 Oh, I bet.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:02:31 The girls, the girls like drug dealers.

Joe Rogan 1:02:33 I bet. Drug dealers have a lot of money.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:02:36 Nice cars.

Joe Rogan 1:02:37 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:02:38 Pay for nice hotels. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:02:39 Yeah. Girls like nice things. Buy you nice gifts.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:02:43 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:02:43 Nice shoes, nice bag, nice this, nice clothes.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:02:47 So, it's easy, you know? When I, when I go out and I talk to these young guys, I, I don't criticize them because I understand what they going through, and I understand that if we don't replace the drug with something else, don't even ask them to quit.

Joe Rogan 1:03:01 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:03:03 Why? Why would you ask somebody not to feed their kids, you know, not to be able to buy their girlfriend the shoes she wants and... You know, weWe have to come up with things, uh 'cause, you know, most of the manufacturing jobs are overseas.

Joe Rogan 1:03:18 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:03:18 You know, we don't make anything in America anymore.

Joe Rogan 1:03:20 Very little.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:03:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:21 Very little. Yeah, that, that... How crazy is that? Who the fuck didn't see that coming that that was gonna ruin everything?

Freeway Rick Ross 1:03:28 Huh. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:03:29 Just to have people in other countries that are extremely poor work for almost nothing. (sighs) It's weird, man. We're a, we're a goofy, goofy culture, and we have so much information. I- It's not like the solution's impossible to solve.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:03:45 Oh, no, we can fix it.

Joe Rogan 1:03:47 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:03:47 We can fix it. But we gotta start.

Joe Rogan 1:03:51 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:03:51 Right where we at. You know, we gotta, we gotta put our f- hands down, our feet down and say, "You know what? We gonna make a stance." And, and, um... You know, that's what I believe. You start with, with, with what you got, where you at. You know, so many people want things to be perfect. No, it ain't gonna be perfect, you know? You might have to go through a little something. You might have to miss a couple meals, you know? But this is what it's gonna take.

Joe Rogan 1:04:18 Yeah. It's, it's just hard if someone's already making a lot of money doing something illegal. It's very hard to tell them, "You're gonna make way less money-"

Freeway Rick Ross 1:04:27 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:04:28 "... and you're gonna work way harder, and you're not gonna enjoy it, but it's gonna be legal." That's v- That's a very hard sell, very hard sell.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:04:38 It is. It is. But we gotta put people first. We got, we gotta learn. I mean, we gotta stop being stupid.

Joe Rogan 1:04:44 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:04:44 And, and I believe when, when, when we don't put people first, we're being stupid.

Joe Rogan 1:04:49 Yes.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:04:50 Because without people, there's no drugs-

Joe Rogan 1:04:52 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:04:52 ... there's no business, there's no nothing.

Joe Rogan 1:04:53 And we are people.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:04:55 We are the people.

Joe Rogan 1:04:56 It's us.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:04:56 It's us.

Joe Rogan 1:04:56 It's just one team. Team Human.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:05:00 Let's win, baby.

Joe Rogan 1:05:01 Yeah. (laughs)

Freeway Rick Ross 1:05:03 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:05:03 The crazy thing is there's enough resources for everybody. There's enough for everybody. There really is. It's just our, our system is just, it's just manipulated and all fucked up and poorly organized and badly planned.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:05:18 I agree.

Joe Rogan 1:05:19 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:05:20 I agree. I'm, I'm... You know, you know I'm deep, deep in the, in the marijuana industry now, and, and I'm watching these guys, and these guys are making millions of dollars, but I'm watching them cut their own throat. I'm sitting here and I'm literally watching them, like, take razorblades to their necks and-

Joe Rogan 1:05:38 How so?

Freeway Rick Ross 1:05:40 Well, some of it, I, I can't talk on the air-

Joe Rogan 1:05:42 Okay.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:05:43 ... about it because i- i- i- i- it ain't proper.

Joe Rogan 1:05:47 Right.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:05:48 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:05:49 Got it. Got it.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:05:49 But I, I would just tell you that, that, that I, I'm being privileged to, to see this business destroy itself. I'm watching them just destroy their business, you know? Uh, no organization, no, no comradery. You know, "I'm gonna beat this guy out. I'm gonna beat that guy out. I, um, I'm gonna put him out of business." And they really gonna put themselves out of business at the same time. It's like... I- I- I saw a thing in National Geographic when I was in jail, and there was a alligator and, uh, one of those big water moccasins was fighting, and the water moccasin wind up swallowing the alligator.

Joe Rogan 1:06:30 Really?

Freeway Rick Ross 1:06:30 Yeah. But in the process, he swallowed the alligator, so when the alligator go inside, he still alive. He takes his claws and go like this here.

Joe Rogan 1:06:44 Oh, going up.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:06:44 Probably, probably his last.

Joe Rogan 1:06:46 It was probably a python.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:06:47 Might've been a python.

Joe Rogan 1:06:48 Yeah. That's in the Everglades.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:06:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:06:51 Yeah. Do you know the largest population of pythons in the world is in the Everglades?

Freeway Rick Ross 1:06:56 I didn't know that.

Joe Rogan 1:06:56 They're not even from the Everglades.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:06:58 I didn't know that.

Joe Rogan 1:06:59 Just assholes releasing them, and then maybe a research center that got hit with a hurricane. There's a lot of speculation about how the population got so large, but there's over half a million pythons.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:07:09 Wow.

Joe Rogan 1:07:10 But yeah, they swallow the alligator and the alligator cuts its way out of their body, and then they both die.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:07:15 They both die.

Joe Rogan 1:07:16 There's a photo of one of a 12-foot alligator bursting out of the body of a python. Look at this.So, this python swallowed this alligator and then the alligator's tail is poking out of it as it clawed its way out. That's its tail.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:07:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:07:36 So, they're both dead.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:07:37 They both died.

Joe Rogan 1:07:38 Yeah. And especially when you're talking about the weed business, how much weed can you sell? You really wanna put everybody out of business? Are you fucking retarded? Why don't you just, like, make as much money as you can and then encourage all these other people to make as much money as they can and hang out together? Go have a barbecue together. Go to... (laughs) go fucking, go-

Freeway Rick Ross 1:07:59 Or just let-

Joe Rogan 1:08:00 ... to dinner together.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:08:00 ... everybody... Let everybody do good.

Joe Rogan 1:08:01 Yeah. Let it happen.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:08:02 You know, everybody set limits.

Joe Rogan 1:08:03 Right. It's-

Freeway Rick Ross 1:08:04 Everybody set limits. Okay, we gonna make this amount of money.

Joe Rogan 1:08:07 Yeah. The competition is within yourself. The competition is to do better. And if you see other people doing better than you, you should say, "What are they doing different than me?" You should be inspired instead of trying to, like, squash their business.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:08:19 They can't think.

Joe Rogan 1:08:20 It's stupid. It's a stupid-

Freeway Rick Ross 1:08:21 These people can't think.

Joe Rogan 1:08:22 ... thing, yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:08:23 They like... They like... I mean, they like gangbangers, almost, to me.

Joe Rogan 1:08:25 It's very similar. There's the same patterns. Those patterns exist in politics, in business, in everything. Drug dealing, gangbang, everything. It used to exist like that in comedy. It used to be comedians were all out- out for themselves. You know, it just takes someone to kind of explain to everybody, like, "This is stupid. There's not that many of us. We're all in this together. There's no... It doesn't benefit you at all if someone fails."

Freeway Rick Ross 1:08:49 Let's make society better!

Joe Rogan 1:08:50 Yes, let's make everything better. Let's make the community better.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:08:52 Let's make everything better.

Joe Rogan 1:08:53 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:08:53 It's... That's- that's what it's supposed to be about. That's what it-

Joe Rogan 1:08:55 That's what it should be about.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:08:55 ... should be about. Whe- when- when- when it's all said and done, you know, I- I read a book and the guy says, "When- when you're at the end, how do you want to be remembered?" And me, I wanted people to say, "Eh," maybe they might say, "I sold drugs." I don't care about that part, yeah. I only sold drugs eight years. But at the end, I want them to say, "He made the world a better place."

Joe Rogan 1:09:21 Mm.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:09:21 'Cause he lived, you know? When I go out like that there, I'll be a happy man.

Joe Rogan 1:09:26 Well, sometimes you have to do the wrong thing in order to be an example of someone who can do the wrong thing and course correct and then become a better person. Like, if you're just a good person from the beginning, that's kind of boring.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:09:38 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:09:38 (laughs)

Freeway Rick Ross 1:09:40 I like a guy who fucks up a few times and then figures it out, and then that can inspire people who have already fucked up their life. 'Cause people wanna think that once they've fucked up their life, "Oh, my God, I'm a fuck-up." But that's not really the case. You just... This life is like... Treat it like a game. Like, if you lose one hand of cards, you're not a card loser for the rest of your life. You gotta figure out, "What did I do wrong? Well, I hit at 17. I should've just stuck in the... You know, I would've been all right." Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:10:08 You gotta learn. And the only way to learn is to fuck up. And this idea that when someone fucks up, they are a fuck-up. No, they're a human being. They're a human being with either bad information or bad counseling or bad examples, and they went down the wrong way.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:10:23 Get off the carpet.

Joe Rogan 1:10:24 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:10:24 They knock you down, get up.

Joe Rogan 1:10:26 Yup, get up.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:10:27 'Cause they say- they say, "You're still the champ as long as you get up."

Joe Rogan 1:10:30 Well, a lot of people will disagree with that. (laughs)

Freeway Rick Ross 1:10:33 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:10:34 I mean, it's just- it's unfortunate, this mentality that people have. It's a famine mentality, and there's enough for everybody. There really is. And it's also what you were saying, that you're like, "It's selfish to be generous. It's selfish to be nice. It's selfish to help people." 'Cause it makes you feel better. It really does. It's really beneficial to you as... And you feel good about yourself. You're like... At the end of the night, when you lay your head down, you're like, "I'm not a piece of shit."

Freeway Rick Ross 1:10:59 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:11:00 "I'm a good guy. I'm helping people."

Freeway Rick Ross 1:11:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:11:01 "People like me and I like them, and everybody... We all benefit and everybody grows." That's nice. That's a good way to live your life, and that's a good example to set, and that can be done. And this- this idea that there's... You know, that it's just you against the world, that's- that's crazy.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:11:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:11:18 That's gonna- that's gonna fuck you over.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:11:21 And I think that's a big problem that we have, and then, you know, hopefully we can start working on that

Narrator 1:11:25 That's beautiful.

Joe Rogan 1:11:26 Have you met this rapper that has been running around with your name for all these years?

Freeway Rick Ross 1:11:30 Oh, he dodges me. He dodges me.

Joe Rogan 1:11:32 You've never seen him?

Freeway Rick Ross 1:11:33 No, I call him Bad Leg Slipper. Uh, you see what happened the other night? He- he- he walked Adrien Broner into the ring and-

Joe Rogan 1:11:39 Oh, Adrien Broner got knocked out?

Freeway Rick Ross 1:11:40 No.

Joe Rogan 1:11:40 Well, he got... He didn't get knocked out, he got beat up.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:11:42 The worst- the worst-

Joe Rogan 1:11:43 Yeah.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:11:43 ... beating he ever got before in his life.

Joe Rogan 1:11:45 Well, Adrien Broner is a cautionary tale, because he was an incredibly talented young man. Very, very talented when he was young, but he fucked off too much and he didn't stay the path and he did- didn't stay disciplined and, you know, he had some losses and Maidana hurt him. That was, like, the first one.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:12:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:12:04 There's a few different fights. He just... You know, and now, what is he? 35? 36?

Freeway Rick Ross 1:12:10 Broke.

Joe Rogan 1:12:11 And if you're, um... If you're... Normal men, healthy men, when they hit 36, their body starts to decline.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:12:20 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 1:12:21 And he's not that healthy. I mean, he was fat just a little while ago. Gervonta Davis took him in and he started training with Gervonta and he documented it, so he showed photos of, like, he had this big belly, he looked fat and out of shape, and then leaned himself down to where he had a six-pack again, but you're just getting back in shape. These motherfuckers that you're fighting have been in shape-

Freeway Rick Ross 1:12:43 Staying in shape.

Joe Rogan 1:12:43 ... for a decade. They're staying-

Freeway Rick Ross 1:12:44 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:12:44 ... in shape for a decade. Their- their reflexes and timing and technique is finely honed to a razor's edge. You can't just jump back in and compete with some dude who's been on the game for 10 fucking straight years.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:12:57 Yeah, no, I agree.

Joe Rogan 1:12:57 And is focused and on the path.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:12:59 I agree.

Joe Rogan 1:12:59 It takes a long time to get back to where you were.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:13:03 Yes.

Joe Rogan 1:13:03 Forget about to where they are. You might look the part. You might be able to hit pads and everybody's like, "Oh, he's back." Like, the- the difference between success and failure in the boxing game is fractions of a second. Fractions of a second. The ability to maintain a pace for as many rounds as the fight is. The- the understanding of how to pace yourself, the ability to handle the pressure, the pressure of knowing that you've fucked up for so long and this is a big opportunity. The nerves, the anxiety, the sleepless nights before the fight. All that's gonna weigh on you, all those different things. When you look at the elite of the elite boxers...... to a man, to every one of 'em, they're disciplined.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:13:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:13:45 And they stay focused. And like, okay, you know who's the same age as Adrien Broner? Terence Crawford, best boxer in the world.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:13:52 I agree.

Joe Rogan 1:13:53 Best boxer.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:13:54 I agree.

Joe Rogan 1:13:54 He... I am so excited to see this fight with Canelo Alvarez 'cause I think their, their, the Saudi Arabians have so much money. They are throwing so much money at boxing. And the guy who's the head of boxing over there wants to make that fight happen. I think Terence Crawford, forget about the three-weight classes, I think he could beat Canelo.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:14:12 I think he can too.

Joe Rogan 1:14:13 He's the best switch-hitter in boxing since Marvin Hagler. And he's so-

Freeway Rick Ross 1:14:17 And, and his hands are like rocks. I, I-

Joe Rogan 1:14:18 Oh.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:14:19 I h- I held his hand in, uh, Dallas, um... You know I found Kid Austin, the boxer?

Joe Rogan 1:14:25 Oh, did you?

Freeway Rick Ross 1:14:26 Yeah. When he was 2-0, so I helped him get to, to where he's at now, even though I don't get any credit for it. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:14:32 (laughs) A lot of people fucking you over, man.

Freeway Rick Ross 1:14:35 So I went to that fight and Terence was there, and I was with Anthony Peterson, you know, I, I manage Anthony Peterson. Uh, Anthony's 39, he wants to come back. So, we're gonna see. But Anthony deals with it a little different. Anthony stays in shape sparring, um, but anyway, I held Terence's hand and they so damn big and