Joe Rogan Experience #2163 - Freeway Rick Ross

1. 0:00 – 0:53

   Reunion after nine years & the origin of the “Real Rick Ross” T-shirt

   1. NANarrator0:00

      (drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

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

   4. FRFreeway Rick Ross0:13

      Man, it's been a long time.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:15

      It's been, yeah, like nine years. Yeah, we were talking about it.

   6. FRFreeway Rick Ross0:18

      Yeah, yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:19

      It's been a while.

   8. FRFreeway Rick Ross0:20

      Yeah, yeah. I've been-

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:20

      For people who don't know-

   10. FRFreeway Rick Ross0:21

       ... I've been waiting.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:23

       (laughs)

   12. FRFreeway Rick Ross0:24

       (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-"

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:30

       I've had about eight different numbers since then.

   14. FRFreeway Rick Ross0:32

       "... he'll call me."

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:33

       (laughs)

   16. FRFreeway Rick Ross0:33

       (laughs)

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:34

       Yeah.

   18. FRFreeway Rick Ross0:34

       I said, "He'll call me."

   19. JRJoe Rogan0:36

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

   20. FRFreeway Rick Ross0:40

       And you know, you know who inspired that shirt?

   21. JRJoe Rogan0:43

       I think I did.

   22. FRFreeway Rick Ross0:44

       You did, you did.

   23. JRJoe Rogan0:44

       (laughs)

   24. FRFreeway Rick Ross0:46

       And you don't even know the whole story.

   25. JRJoe Rogan0:47

       What's the story?

   26. FRFreeway Rick Ross0:49

       Well, you know after that day you, you told me that I needed a shirt, right?

   27. JRJoe Rogan0:53

       Yeah.

2. 0:53 – 3:34

   Post-prison survival: homelessness, PayPal going viral, and getting back on his feet

   1. FRFreeway Rick Ross0:53

      You know I was, I was really homeless then.

   2. JRJoe Rogan0:56

      Really?

   3. FRFreeway Rick Ross0:56

      You didn't know that part of the story?

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:58

      I didn't know. Yeah.

   5. FRFreeway Rick Ross0:58

      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-

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:11

      Wow.

   7. FRFreeway Rick Ross1:11

      ... 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)

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:50

      (laughs)

   9. FRFreeway Rick Ross1:51

      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.

   10. JRJoe Rogan2:09

       Wow.

   11. FRFreeway Rick Ross2:10

       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)

   12. JRJoe Rogan2:31

       (laughs) Why were you mad at me?

   13. FRFreeway Rick Ross2:32

       '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)

   14. JRJoe Rogan3:05

       (laughs)

   15. FRFreeway Rick Ross3:05

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

   16. JRJoe Rogan3:15

       (laughs)

   17. FRFreeway Rick Ross3:15

       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)

   18. JRJoe Rogan3:26

       Wow.

   19. FRFreeway Rick Ross3:26

       So my whole life's changed from there. From there, I took that money and I did this.

3. 3:34 – 4:27

   Writing his book in prison: a ‘how-to’ warning for kids about the drug game

   1. JRJoe Rogan3:34

      You wrote a book?

   2. FRFreeway Rick Ross3:35

      I wrote a... I had already wrote the book.

   3. JRJoe Rogan3:37

      Oh, okay.

   4. FRFreeway Rick Ross3:37

      I wrote the book in prison-

   5. JRJoe Rogan3:39

      Oh.

   6. FRFreeway Rick Ross3:39

      ... 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.

   7. JRJoe Rogan3:53

      Like a how-to manual.

   8. FRFreeway Rick Ross3:55

      Like a how-to manual.

   9. JRJoe Rogan3:56

      (laughs)

   10. FRFreeway Rick Ross3:56

       '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-

   11. JRJoe Rogan4:18

       Yeah.

   12. FRFreeway Rick Ross4:18

       ... and a prison sentence. So I felt that-

   13. JRJoe Rogan4:22

       You wanted to give them all the information?

   14. FRFreeway Rick Ross4:23

       ... I wanted to give them all the information, so I wrote this. And I brought you one-

   15. JRJoe Rogan4:26

       Oh.

   16. FRFreeway Rick Ross4:26

       ... as a gift.

4. 4:27 – 8:14

   Iran-Contra connections and Ross’s legal saga: literacy, jailhouse lawyering, and ‘three strikes’

   1. JRJoe Rogan4:27

      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-

   2. FRFreeway Rick Ross4:46

      Yep.

   3. JRJoe Rogan4:47

      ... 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.

   4. FRFreeway Rick Ross5:01

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan5:01

      They're using the money to fund this war.

   6. FRFreeway Rick Ross5:03

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan5:03

      And you were the one who was moving the drugs.

   8. FRFreeway Rick Ross5:07

      Correct.

   9. JRJoe Rogan5:07

      And you-

   10. FRFreeway Rick Ross5:08

       A lot of it.

   11. JRJoe Rogan5:08

       And you didn't know. You had-

   12. FRFreeway Rick Ross5:10

       Well-

   13. JRJoe Rogan5:10

       ... no idea where-

   14. FRFreeway Rick Ross5:12

       I was just a dumb kid from South Central, man.

   15. JRJoe Rogan5:14

       Yeah.

   16. FRFreeway Rick Ross5:14

       I never read a book.

   17. JRJoe Rogan5:15

       You couldn't read?

   18. FRFreeway Rick Ross5:16

       I couldn't read at that time.

   19. JRJoe Rogan5:17

       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.

   20. FRFreeway Rick Ross5:26

       Yep.

   21. JRJoe Rogan5:26

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

   22. FRFreeway Rick Ross5:36

       Yep.

   23. JRJoe Rogan5:36

       ... of you being arrested. They used the three instances of whatever they tried to pin on you-

   24. FRFreeway Rick Ross5:41

       Correct.

   25. JRJoe Rogan5:42

       ... from one case. And so you got outta jail.

   26. FRFreeway Rick Ross5:45

       I got outta jail.

   27. JRJoe Rogan5:46

       You would still be in jail right now.

   28. FRFreeway Rick Ross5:47

       Right now.

   29. JRJoe Rogan5:48

       If you didn't-

   30. FRFreeway Rick Ross5:49

       And if I would've listened to my lawyer, too.
5. 8:14 – 13:48

   Success after release—and betrayal: documentary rights, Netflix exposure, and ‘Snowfall’

   1. FRFreeway Rick Ross8:14

      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?

   2. JRJoe Rogan8:41

      I don't know.

   3. FRFreeway Rick Ross8:41

      Well, you know, they took the documentary from me.

   4. JRJoe Rogan8:43

      What do you mean? What happened?

   5. FRFreeway Rick Ross8:45

      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)

   6. JRJoe Rogan9:22

      Oh my God.

   7. FRFreeway Rick Ross9:22

      The judge said I had no accounting rights, you know, no right to see how much money was being made, uh...

   8. JRJoe Rogan9:27

      On a documentary on your life?

   9. FRFreeway Rick Ross9:29

      Did I put money? I put, I took money, T-shirt money and put it into the documentary.

   10. JRJoe Rogan9:34

       (laughs)

   11. FRFreeway Rick Ross9:34

       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.

   12. JRJoe Rogan9:46

       Wow.

   13. FRFreeway Rick Ross9:47

       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.

   14. JRJoe Rogan10:04

       What?

   15. FRFreeway Rick Ross10:05

       Yeah, yeah. So, it ain't-

   16. JRJoe Rogan10:07

       John Singleton?

   17. FRFreeway Rick Ross10:08

       John Singleton did me like that, man.

   18. JRJoe Rogan10:10

       No way.

   19. FRFreeway Rick Ross10:11

       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-

   20. JRJoe Rogan10:39

       Nothing?

   21. FRFreeway Rick Ross10:39

       ... in at all. Nothing.

   22. JRJoe Rogan10:39

       Did you talk to him?

   23. FRFreeway Rick Ross10:40

       I saw him one time. He changed his number.

   24. JRJoe Rogan10:43

       (sighs)

   25. FRFreeway Rick Ross10:43

       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-

   26. JRJoe Rogan10:56

       He probably said that just to get the fuck out. (laughs)

   27. FRFreeway Rick Ross11:00

       (laughs)

   28. JRJoe Rogan11:00

       I gotcha. Let me get outta here. (laughs)

   29. FRFreeway Rick Ross11:05

       (laughs) So I totally understood. But, uh, other than that, you know, it's, it's been all right.

   30. JRJoe Rogan11:11

       There's a lot of people that disappoint you in this life.
6. 13:48 – 22:28

   Second chances, prison’s long shadow, and the homelessness crisis as wasted potential

   1. JRJoe Rogan13:48

      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.

   2. FRFreeway Rick Ross14:05

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan14:06

      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-

   4. FRFreeway Rick Ross14:35

      Wow. (laughs) .

   5. JRJoe Rogan14:36

      (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."

   6. FRFreeway Rick Ross14:45

      (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan14:45

      "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?

   8. FRFreeway Rick Ross14:59

      I did 20 years and three months.

   9. JRJoe Rogan15:01

      Wow.

   10. FRFreeway Rick Ross15:03

       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)

   11. JRJoe Rogan15:25

       Right. Right.

   12. FRFreeway Rick Ross15:25

       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.

   13. JRJoe Rogan15:41

       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-

   14. FRFreeway Rick Ross16:13

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan16:13

       ... was involved in the drug game so that they could fund-

   16. FRFreeway Rick Ross16:15

       When Gary Webb came-

   17. JRJoe Rogan16:17

       Mm-hmm.

   18. FRFreeway Rick Ross16:17

       ... 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-

   19. JRJoe Rogan16:43

       Crazy.

   20. FRFreeway Rick Ross16:43

       ... and then the CIA come to my cell and Maxine Waters come to my cell. And what? All these people? (laughs)

   21. JRJoe Rogan16:51

       I know.

   22. FRFreeway Rick Ross16:52

       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.

   23. JRJoe Rogan17:30

       We had, uh, Michael Ruper on the podcast back when he was alive. Michael Ruper was the cop that-

   24. FRFreeway Rick Ross17:36

       I knew Michael.

   25. JRJoe Rogan17:37

       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.

   26. FRFreeway Rick Ross17:55

       I read his book.

   27. JRJoe Rogan17:56

       Yeah. Which one?

   28. FRFreeway Rick Ross17:57

       Uh, I don't remember. (laughs) It was so long ago.

   29. JRJoe Rogan17:59

       Crossing the Rubicon?

   30. FRFreeway Rick Ross18:00

       Yeah, yeah.
7. 22:28 – 27:56

   Practical solutions: community centers, housing-first models, and restoring opportunity

   1. JRJoe Rogan22:28

      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-

   2. FRFreeway Rick Ross22:42

      No, uh-uh.

   3. JRJoe Rogan22:43

      ... kind of scary.

   4. FRFreeway Rick Ross22:44

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan22:44

      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-

   6. FRFreeway Rick Ross22:54

      Wow.

   7. JRJoe Rogan22:54

      ... that we've created.

   8. FRFreeway Rick Ross22:55

      Mm-hmm.

   9. JRJoe Rogan22:56

      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.

   10. FRFreeway Rick Ross24:32

       Yeah, yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan24:32

       And he's, and he's helping them, and he's helping them in a really beautiful way. And...... it can be done.

   12. FRFreeway Rick Ross24:39

       Well, I'd like to connect with him.

   13. JRJoe Rogan24:40

       I will connect you with him.

   14. FRFreeway Rick Ross24:41

       Yeah, definitely.

   15. JRJoe Rogan24:42

       Yeah. He-

   16. FRFreeway Rick Ross24:42

       '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-

   17. JRJoe Rogan24:52

       Right, three strikes, you're out. Right.

   18. FRFreeway Rick Ross24:53

       I mean, if it was your brother-

   19. JRJoe Rogan24:54

       Right.

   20. FRFreeway Rick Ross24:55

       ... right? It was your brother-

   21. JRJoe Rogan24:55

       Right.

   22. FRFreeway Rick Ross24:55

       ... would he only get three strikes, you know? (laughs)

   23. JRJoe Rogan24:57

       Of course. Right, exactly. Yeah.

   24. FRFreeway Rick Ross24:59

       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?

   25. JRJoe Rogan25:03

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

   26. FRFreeway Rick Ross25:10

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan25:10

       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.

   28. FRFreeway Rick Ross25:30

       (laughs)

   29. JRJoe Rogan25:30

       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.

   30. FRFreeway Rick Ross26:01

       Correct.
8. 27:56 – 34:03

   Drug war realities: scale of Ross’s operation and why illegality fuels cartels and violence

   1. JRJoe Rogan27:56

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

   2. FRFreeway Rick Ross28:04

      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.

   3. JRJoe Rogan28:13

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

   4. FRFreeway Rick Ross28:20

      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.

   5. JRJoe Rogan28:39

      Jesus.

   6. FRFreeway Rick Ross28:40

      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.

   7. JRJoe Rogan28:54

      And what did you do with the money?

   8. FRFreeway Rick Ross28:56

      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.

   9. JRJoe Rogan29:46

      Wow.

   10. FRFreeway Rick Ross29:46

       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.

   11. JRJoe Rogan30:04

       How quick did it come?

   12. FRFreeway Rick Ross30:06

       Oh, it took- it took a little while. It took a few months. But you know-

   13. JRJoe Rogan30:10

       That's (laughs) that's crazy though.

   14. FRFreeway Rick Ross30:11

       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)

   15. JRJoe Rogan30:53

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

   16. FRFreeway Rick Ross30:58

       I just didn't know that.

   17. JRJoe Rogan30:59

       Yeah, well, 'cause there's no way you could have known.

   18. FRFreeway Rick Ross31:00

       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.

   19. JRJoe Rogan31:10

       Yeah.

   20. FRFreeway Rick Ross31:10

       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)

   21. JRJoe Rogan32:00

       (laughs)

   22. FRFreeway Rick Ross32:00

       "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."

   23. JRJoe Rogan32:09

       Mm.

   24. FRFreeway Rick Ross32:09

       "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-

   25. JRJoe Rogan32:26

       Well, it was the first very successful thing that you'd been a part of.

   26. FRFreeway Rick Ross32:30

       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.

   27. JRJoe Rogan32:39

       Right.

   28. FRFreeway Rick Ross32:40

       (laughs)

   29. JRJoe Rogan32:40

       Right.

   30. FRFreeway Rick Ross32:41

       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."
9. 34:03 – 40:11

   Personal experiences with cocaine, addiction to ‘the business,’ and the case for decriminalization

   1. JRJoe Rogan34:03

      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.

   2. FRFreeway Rick Ross35:00

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan35:00

      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.

   4. FRFreeway Rick Ross35:17

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan35:17

      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-

   6. FRFreeway Rick Ross35:42

      Absolutely.

   7. JRJoe Rogan35:42

      ... that now are immensely powerful.

   8. FRFreeway Rick Ross35:45

      And it makes people want to get involved because of the money.

   9. JRJoe Rogan35:48

      Incredible amounts of money.

   10. FRFreeway Rick Ross35:50

       You know?

   11. JRJoe Rogan35:50

       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.

   12. FRFreeway Rick Ross36:18

       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-

   13. JRJoe Rogan36:35

       Right.

   14. FRFreeway Rick Ross36:35

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

   15. JRJoe Rogan36:41

       (sniffs)

   16. FRFreeway Rick Ross36:41

       ... we create that attracts people to-

   17. JRJoe Rogan36:44

       Right.

   18. FRFreeway Rick Ross36:44

       ... coke, uh, and... and... and-

   19. JRJoe Rogan36:45

       It's also making it illegal, so it's difficult to get.

   20. FRFreeway Rick Ross36:48

       Yeah, well, making it illegal-

   21. JRJoe Rogan36:48

       Yeah.

   22. FRFreeway Rick Ross36:49

       ... creates a value.

   23. JRJoe Rogan36:49

       Yeah.

   24. FRFreeway Rick Ross36:50

       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.

   25. JRJoe Rogan37:45

       (Exhales)

   26. FRFreeway Rick Ross37:45

       So what I realized is that they had tricked me into getting started so that they could get high.

   27. JRJoe Rogan37:52

       Ah. (laughs)

   28. FRFreeway Rick Ross37:54

       '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.

   29. JRJoe Rogan38:06

       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?

   30. FRFreeway Rick Ross38:14

       No, I never heard of him.
10. 40:11 – 1:45:29

    From crack to cannabis: dispensary life, strains, and fighting for felons in the legal weed industry

    1. FRFreeway Rick Ross40:11

       And, and that leads me to...

    2. JRJoe Rogan40:13

       Uh-oh, you're in the business?

    3. FRFreeway Rick Ross40:14

       I'm in the business.

    4. JRJoe Rogan40:15

       Well, you know what's interesting? Is there's, there's cert-

    5. FRFreeway Rick Ross40:17

       I bought you some gifts.

    6. JRJoe Rogan40:18

       Oh, what do you got here?

    7. FRFreeway Rick Ross40:19

       These are my new strains.

    8. JRJoe Rogan40:21

       All right-

    9. FRFreeway Rick Ross40:21

       You know I got a dis-

    10. JRJoe Rogan40:22

        Big Boss has got strains.

    11. FRFreeway Rick Ross40:22

        You know I got a dispensary.

    12. JRJoe Rogan40:24

        You do?

    13. FRFreeway Rick Ross40:24

        I got a dispensary.

    14. JRJoe Rogan40:25

        Where?

    15. FRFreeway Rick Ross40:25

        I'm a legal marijuana dealer. The state's on my... (laughs)

    16. JRJoe Rogan40:27

        That's incredible.

    17. FRFreeway Rick Ross40:29

        (laughs)

    18. JRJoe Rogan40:30

        That's incredible.

    19. FRFreeway Rick Ross40:30

        I told you we've been going a long time, man.

    20. JRJoe Rogan40:32

        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.

    21. FRFreeway Rick Ross40:47

        Yeah.

    22. JRJoe Rogan40:47

        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.

    23. FRFreeway Rick Ross40:54

        Absolutely.

    24. JRJoe Rogan40:54

        My God, marijuana makes people calmer, makes people funnier, makes-

    25. FRFreeway Rick Ross40:58

        Make you go to sleep. I can sleep.

    26. JRJoe Rogan41:00

        Makes you go to sleep. Yeah.

    27. FRFreeway Rick Ross41:01

        I can get some sleep.

    28. JRJoe Rogan41:02

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

    29. FRFreeway Rick Ross41:07

        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.

    30. JRJoe Rogan41:21

        High Times?

Episode duration: 2:31:08