Rick Ross faced threats from various local chapters of the Gangster Disciples crew, but the rapper said that’s not the real reason his Maybach Music Group tour was called off.
Instead, Ross says it is the fault of promoter Shawn Gee, who dropped three shows without his permission. Calling off the tour was a way to put Gee in his place, Spin reported.
“I just felt like there was some power that I needed to take away from homie, so I canceled the rest of the dates. I just shut it down, and never was it due to any threats,” Rick Ross said, discounting the story that threats caused the tour’s cancellation.
When Rick Ross initially called off his tour, the media reported that it was threats from the Gangster Disciples that caused it. Ross used the name of the gang’s founder, Larry Hoover, in his 2010 hit “B.M.F. (Blowin’ Money Fast)” and the gang’s symbol on the cover of his Black Bar Mitzvah mixtape. The gang then demanded that Rick Ross give them a cut of the profits, but Ross told Miami rap station 99 JAMZ that their request amounted to extortion.
Rick Ross said threats didn’t really scare him:
“I was in Chicago a week and a half ago, that’s the birthplace of the GDs … Y’all Google up, y’all get online. You pull up my footage of being in Chicago when I walked out with that $40,000 black chinchilla, you understand? I told ’em cut the music off, I want ’em just look at me for a little while, ya hear? Look at my beard. Look at the coat. Look how I walk. And that ain’t no disrespect. I’m here to get money … I salute every set.”
Ross then added that he isn’t interested in playing the gangster life, just making music.
“I’m here to make stars, I’m here to make icons, I’m here to break records, I’m here to be Grammy nominated, so that’s what I’m doing,” Rick Ross said of the threats. “To me, rich is gangsta. Loyal is gangsta. Family is gangsta. If that’s not gangsta, I don’t wanna be gangsta.”