Rick Ross 'Deeper Than Rap' album

Rick Ross embraced his city's reputation for drug trafficking on his debut single, "Hustlin'," in 2006. While Atlanta and Houston artists were establishing their cities as Southern strongholds, Ross aimed at putting Miami back in rap's national spotlight.

Influenced by artists like Luther Campbell and the Notorious B.I.G., Roberts formed local rap group the Carol City Cartel and began rapping in the mid-'90s. (He took his rap name from Los Angeles drug kingpin "Freeway" Rick Ross, who ran one of the largest crack-cocaine distribution networks in the country during the '80s and early '90s.) Ross had a brief stint on Suave House Records, former label of Eightball & MJG, before he ended up on Miami-based Slip-N-Side Records, the label home of Trick Daddy and Trina. During the early to mid-2000s, he became popular and well known locally through touring with Trick Daddy and guest-appearing on a few Slip-N-Slide releases, but didn't release any solo material until 2006.

Once "Hustlin'" caught the ear of a few executives within the national industry, a bidding war ensued that included offers from Bad Boy CEO Sean "Diddy" Combs and The Inc. (formerly Murder Inc.) president Irv Gotti. Nonetheless, Def Jam president and veteran rapper Jay-Z signed Ross to a multi-million-dollar deal. The Miami anthem "Hustlin'" went on to receive gold status from RIAA in May 2006 and sold over a million ringtone units before the physical release of his debut album, Port of Miami. Released in August 2006, Ross' debut was Slip-N-Side's first project under the Def Jam partnership, and it went to number one on the Billboard album chart. His follow-up, Trilla, was released the following year, prefaced with the Cool & Dre-produced title track. Early 2009 saw the release of Deeper Than Rap, an album greeted with numerous positive reviews in the hip-hop press. His Deeper Than Rap debuted at #1 on Billboard Top 200, according to numbers provided by Nielsen SoundScan.

Ross says he had to stretch the truth to get his record label on board to have staff and a film crew travel to Medellin, Colombia, a place with a violent history, recently to shoot his video for "All I Really Want."

"To be honest, everybody thought about their safety," Ross said of Def Jam and others' initial reaction to his idea of having Gil Green shoot the video in the hometown of the late, notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar. "Everybody got on laptops, Googled. First thing that came up was 'car bombs,' 'hostages,' this, that and all that. I told them, 'We got some good friends over there. It's a beautiful spot.' Even though I'm really gassing them [at that point], they rolled with me. They believed in my concept."

With the label on board, the Bawse had to convince his friend The-Dream, who sings the hook on the song (featured on Ross' recent chart-topping LP, Deeper Than Rap), to go along.

The video for "All I Really Want" premiered on MTV Jams. In it, you see all the partying you would imagine from a Ross and The-Dream video: Plenty of lovely ladies ("nothing but 12s," Ross said of the beauties), natives and even fire-breathing.

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Rick Ross - Deeper Than Rap