In his music Rick Ross often plays the ladies' man, directing his teddy-bear like boss-isms to the various objects of his affection, but Rozay came under heavy fire earlier this week after a particular lyric conjured up images of rape and abuse.
"There was a misunderstanding with lyric, a misinterpretation," the MMG Mastermind told Q 93.3 in New Orleans of his questionable lyric on Rocko's mixtape single "U.O.E.N.O."
The track was released in February, as a selection of Rocko's Gift of Gab 2 mixtape, but drew a ton of attention this week when journalist and activist Rosa Clemente denounced it in a YouTube video charging that Ross was promoting rape in one key rhyme.
"Put Molly all in her champagne, she ain't even know it/ I took her home and she enjoyed that, she ain't even know it," Rozay rapped, name-dropping the popular party drug which is often said to enhance euphoria and sexuality.
Ross vehemently denied the charge during Wednesday night's radio interview. "I would never use the term 'rape' in my records and as far as my camp. Hip-hop don't condone that, the streets don't condone that, nobody condones that," he said. "So I just wanted to reach out to all my queens that's on my timeline, all the sexy ladies, the beautiful ladies that have been reaching out to me with the misunderstanding: We don't condone rape, and I'm not with that."
One radio station has already taken action against the Maybach CEO as well as Lil Wayne, who also had his own lyric controversy last month when he referenced civil rights figure Emmett Till in a remix to Future's "Karate Chop" single. WUVS-103.7 in Muskegon, Michigan, has pulled all Lil Wayne and Rick Ross music from their rotation. "We pride ourselves on playing music that is non-degrading and non-violent," the station wrote in a statement that was published to their website Thursday. "While we believe in freedom of speech, creative writing and individualism, we refuse to be part of the problem by spreading messages that could harm or end someone's life."
Ross didn't address the radio ban and it appears that at the time of the interview he wasn't aware of it. The star rapper didn't exactly clarify what he meant by the lyric either, but did field all of the questions that were thrown at him. "I feel like us being artists, that's our job to calcify the sensitive things, the things that we really know need to be clarified such as a situation as this," he said.
Do you believe Rick Ross intended to promote rape in his song lyric? Tell us in the comments!