Album Review: Rick Ross- Mastermind

Believe it or not, both my writing, and rapper Rick Ross, have something in common.

We’re both incredibly polarizing.

Let me explain. I should clarify that I mean my writing about hip-hop and rap records. I make jokes about being a “subject matter expert,” but I’m honestly far from it. I’m just a dude who is almost 31 who likes rap music, but is really hard to please when it comes to new rap music. And when I pick albums to review for this stupid blog, or for other smart blogs, I find that I can’t make myself like everything, and that I can’t just only review things that I like.

Recently, I wrote a piece on the drastically underwhelming Schoolboy Q LP, and there were two commenters who very upset with the fact that I didn’t think it was, like, the greatest record of all time. I also had said in my review that I also didn’t really care much for Kendrick Lamar’s very successful and well-loved good Kid, m.A.A.d City. One of the commenters was so aghast at this fact that he told me I didn’t have a good ear for hip-hop.

Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that I wasn’t allowed to think for myself and form my own opinions about something.

Then there were all the cool teens that called me a faggot on Twitter because I didn’t like the last Eminem album. And of course there was the whole fiasco with The Weeknd’s album Kiss Land.

Anyway, haters gonna hate, lovers gonna love, am I right?

So Rick Ross. The Teflon Don. Ricky Rozay. William Roberts III.

Like, I haven’t listened to a TON of Rick Ross before. He is obviously well known for his contributions to Kanye West’s “Monster,” and I guess I don’t mind his appearance on Pusha T’s “Hold On.” But I say he’s a polarizing figure because of the controversy he always seems to find himself in, as well as the fact that his career is kind of like that movie CB4 come to life. A former corrections officer, Roberts took his rap name from an actual one-time drug kingpin, “Freeway” Rick Ross, who later went on to try to sue for copywriting infringement. Ross (the rapper) has taken lots of flack for his former history with law enforcement, while trying to claim ties to the streets in his lyrics.

Then there was that whole thing where in a guest verse on the song “U.O.E.N.O,” he rapped about putting ecstasy in a girl’s drink, and possibly implying he date raped her. He denied this, but it was enough for him to lose his endorsement deal with Reebok after it upset so many people.

Also, Vice’s music site, Noisey, was kind enough to point out that Rick Ross has no clue how ecstasy even would work if he did put it in a girl’s drink with the intent on sleeping with her.

Anyway, this all brings us up to right now, and the release of Ross’ sixth LP, Mastermind, an album that is just about as bloated as Ross himself. How do I know that Mastermind is the Teflon Don’s sixth album? I mean I could just go on his Wikipedia page and count the entries in his discography, but he’s kind enough to state this very fact—“Mastermind. My sixth LP…” at the end of the track “Thug Cry.” The album arrives in not one, but TWO different editions, as is common place these days with record releases: the standard boasts 16 tracks, while the deluxe tacks on an additional three, bringing it up to nearly 75 minutes of a constantly out of breath rapper talking about sparkling rosé Luc Belaire.

Mastermind isn’t even technically out yet, but because of an advance stream of it in the iTunes store, Ross found himself the center of yet another lyrical controversy, due to his completely tasteless and rather unnecessary mention of Trayvon Martin in the song “BLK & WHT,” where Ross states—“Forbes.com, I'm the Teflon Don, Too close to a ni**a as a motherfucking bomb, Trayvon Martin, I'm never missing my target.” Ross has since gone on to defend this by saying:

There I’m reminding people that if you’re a black person or a person of any color for that matter in this country, you have to be accurate, whatever moves you make, stay accurate. Even when you’re walking down the street, playing music from your car, you have to stay on point.

Black men are being killed and their killers [are] beating the trial. It hasn’t been this much violence against black men since the ‘60s. I am Trayvon Martin, we’re all Trayvon Martin. He was from South Florida. That could have been me or one of my homies. So, stay alert and never miss your target. Whatever that target may be. Getting out the hood, providing from your family. Stay sharp. Stay alive. Trayvon, Rest in Peace.

Uh-huh. Sure thing. This makes perfect sense.

“BLK & WHT” is just one of many songs on Mastermind that is just flat out irritating to listen to. Part of it has to due with Ross’ delivery—on the refrain of the song, he continues to repeat the phrase “Young ni**a black but he’s sellin’ white,” but he does so with an odd cadence that is just flat out maddening. He does the same thing earlier on “The Devil is a Lie,” a track that features a surprisingly tolerable, bravado filled verse from Jay Z, as well as grandiose sounding production.

The grandiose production is something that runs throughout the entirety of Mastermind. The album, even in its more restrained moments, is designed to sound huge, and with that, incredibly expensive; so in that sense, it is a true product of its maker. Ross, himself, is huge, and he can’t help but rap about his love of the finer things in life, as well as taking every opportunity to flaunt his fortunes—choosing to open the track “Drug Dealers Dream” by checking his bank balance on the telephone. He apparently has $92 million dollars in his account. But my real issue with this is who checks their balance on the phone? Isn’t that what Internet banking is for?

The low points of this album arrive in the form of the three-minute sketch, “Dope Bitch,” where a group of vapid women discuss how “basic bitches” make them nervous. For an album as overloaded as Mastermind, the last thing you need is a skit to slow down the pacing even more, but here it is, arriving before the final act of the record. I thought that as a whole, hip-hop artists had moved well beyond things like this, but I guess I was mistaken.

“War Ready” is another hard sell—a seven-minute track that trudges along with a rather generic sounding trap-style beat. And then later, my favorite R&B crooner/misogynist The Weeknd arrives on “In Vein,” and continues to sing about the only things he knows—questionably consensual sex, and substance abuse.

Not so much the “worst” moment on Mastermind, but definitely the most “seinfeldnothanks.gif” inducing is “Nobody,” a miscast cover/”reinterpretation” of The Notorious B.I.G.’s “You’re Nobody ‘Til Somebody Kills You,” the closing track off of his posthumously released Life After Death.  Here, Ross chooses to open it with a sound collage of sorts featuring an alleged 911 call, as well as news reports, pertaining to the drive-by shooting he was targeted in on his birthday in 2013—doing so in almost a “too soon” kind of moment where one really wonders if Ross should be making light of an attempt on his life.

Once he gets into the song, he has French Montana sing the hook, includes odd portions Sean “Puffy” Combs yelling some street-style daily affirmations, and as Stereogum put it, “sending Ross’ Biggie Smalls corpse-humpery levels through the roof.” Rarely do I agree with the writing on Stereogum, but I honestly couldn’t have said it better myself.

But hey, there is one outstanding moment on Mastermind, and it arrives late in the game, in the form of the latest single “Sanctified.” Featuring production by Kanye West, Travis Scott, and current “it” producer DJ Mustard, the song succeeds primarily because of the amazing beat behind it, as well as the guest work from West himself, and Big Sean. Built around a recreated gospel sample, the rest of the track is designed to sound incredibly triumphant, yet somehow it is also both somber and repentant. Honestly, it’s tough to describe: light keyboards twinkle in the background of the song. It sounds both playful and heartbreaking at the same time, if that makes any sense at all. The whole thing is simply astounding.

The refrain of the song was Twitter ready—“All I wanted was a hundred million dollars and a bad bitch,” and rather than saving the guest spots for last, Kanye is up first, delivering a confident, yet fun and self-aware verse, ending it with a shit eating grin: “God sent me a message, said I'm too aggressive. Really!? Me!? Too aggressive!?”

It’s interesting to me that Rick Ross has chosen the nickname “The Teflon Don.” Teflon, as we know, is a chemical treatment commonly found on cookware to prevent things from sticking to a pan. In a slang sense of the word, it’s taken to mean if someone is “Teflon,” that criticism does not stick to them. This could certainly be said for Rick Ross—who has obviously taken his fair share of criticism over his career, and yet, continues to succeed and thrive as a commercially viable artist. However, in my own experience with Teflon cookware, the non-stick coating eventually flakes off, and chances are, you’ve unintentionally ingested a bunch of it, and you’re left with a shitty, possibly toxic pan.

In one of the comments from the individuals who were dissatisfied with my assessment of Schoolboy Q’s Oxymoron, they said that it Q makes “real” gangsta rap, and that everyone is so used to “studio gangstas” like Rick Ross. Ross’ lyrics, at times, may be creative non-fiction, or just straight up fiction, but the flossin’ and Rick Rossin’ wears thin to my ears very early on in what ends up being a rather long listen. Mastermind as a whole is incredibly unfocused, and overall, is a rather tepid effort.  It’s the kind of big budget album from an establish performer that doesn’t want to reinvent the wheel, but also isn’t bringing any new or exciting ideas to the table.

Mastermind arrives Tuesday via Ross' own Maybach Music, and Def Jam Records.