Did the TIs issue a gag order re: Rick Ross?

Rick Ross might be smarter than he looks.

Back when it was revealed that Rowss used to be a corrections officer, where he probably had to watch guys take a shower, and had poo flung on him, and had to sign a paper saying he would shoot a guy in the back if he tried to escape, I suggested that he should just admit that it's true and be done with it.

I figured people could give a rat's ass that he worked for the Department of Corrections for a year and a half back when he was 19, before he embarked on his career as a drug kingpin. Lord knows I did my fair share of things I'm not proud of back when I was 19. I'm sure you can imagine. Nullus.

To this day, though, Rick Ross has yet to admit that he used to be a cop. In interviews, he claims that the pictures of him in all of that polyester, and the documents touting his propensity to show up to work on time (seriously, wtf?) are forgeries. I even saw an interview where he claimed he didn't steal his nom de rap from the famous LA crack dealer (and tennis player) Freeway Rick Ross.

The fuck?

My guess is that, back when these allegations began to surface, the TIs took him into a room (or perhaps their secret lair, six miles below the earth's surface) and told him to just continue to deny that shit, no matter what, and eventually those dreaded n-words will just accept it the same way they do everything else that's gone wrong with hip-hop.

And wouldn't you know, they were probably right.

I was checking the story on the Ozone Awards over at MTV News just now, and I notice that Rawls' album Trilla actually won this year's for Best Rap Album. Which I hadn't read before until just now. In all the hoopla re: mofos receiving the Double-O treatment, I guess it hadn't occurred to me that they actually gave out awards at this damn thing.

Well, that and the fact that I could generally give a rat's ass about that kind of music.

Anyhoo, you'd think this would have been as much of a controversy as Trae vs. Mike Jones, and Lil Boosie vs. which ever n-bomb tried to snatch his chain and what have you. I mean, this guy Rick Ross was just revealed as a complete and utter fraud a few weeks ago, and yet he still received one of the main awards at this thing. I'm surprised they gave him shit.

Or was there some sort of voting process weeks beforehand, overseen by an international accounting firm, as if it was the Academy Awards, and so they couldn't just go back and cross his name off the list? Nah, I'd be willing to bet that the selection process in these awards is fairly arbitrary.

If anything, the fact that Rick Ross took home the most coveted prize of the evening probably had to do with the fact that the TIs have more invested in his career than, say, Trae, or one of these other bums. And you know these magazines know better than to fuck with a TI's money, even if it's their credibility at stake.

Don't be surprised if you see several pages of ads for Rick Ross, or some other Def Jam artist, in an upcoming issue of Ozone - similar to how the new issue of Vibe, with Jay-Z on the cover, supposedly has 20 pages of ads for Roc-A-Wear.

But I suppose that's to be expected from these magazines. What surprises me is that there hasn't been more of a backlash from Rowse's fellow rappers.

I figured there probably would be, given that Reuss' entire career is based on his being this drug kingpin, and the last thing these rappers need is people thinking drug dealer shit is all a bunch of bullshit. It's like, if people found out I had attended several functions at R. Kelly's house, I'd want people to know I was there to fuck the (legally) grown women, not the kids.

Just so people wouldn't get the wrong idea about me.

I knew the fix was in, though, when I checked - again - MTV News, right as the shit was hitting the fan re: Rall's former career as a corrections officer, and I saw they had a story where a bunch of dudes like the Clipse and Fabolous offering all kinds of excuses for the fact that Rust had just been exposed as a fucking fraud and liar.

Clearly, some phone calls had been made.

So far, the only people I've seen take any shots at Rocks have been random-ass dudes from MySpace with no real career prospects, and this guy Maino, who I know did quite a bit of time in the joint, so he must be taking this a bit more personally than the rest of us. Perhaps he was once "tampered with" by a CO, and this is his way of seeking closure. (I'm just throwing that out there.)

What do you fruits think? Do the TIs have some sort of conspiracy to sweep this Rast shit under the rug, or is it just a coincidence that hardly anyone in the hip-hop community has been willing to take him to task? Probably the former, right?