S. Samuel
Southern rapper Rick Ross has come forward to address his no-show at last week's Soul Train Awards days after billed performer Chrisette Michele called him out.
According to Ross, he did not want to take part in a performance he could not have input on.
“What exactly happened was I came the day before and they gave me a mic just to do rehearsals and I had no input on the performance,” Ross told radio personality Tim Westwood. “We done worked a long time to get in this position, just not to be thrown on stage. We had just done our thing at the BET Awards and we were a part of that performance down to the flames. I just want to be a part of the production when it surrounds me, that’s all. That’s it baby, that’s it, it wasn’t nothing personal to no one. It was no beefs.” (BBC Radio)
This week, Michele detailed the aftermath of Ross’ no-show.
“I can’t get in touch with him no more. So I’m wondering honestly is he okay, is everything okay? Then I’m wondering how does this make us look to corporate America? Because we got folks spending hundreds and hundreds, hundreds of millions of dollars on putting a show together and then the only rap artist for the whole entire show, the only hip hop representation for the whole show…For hip-hop to walk out like that — you know to me that’s what it meant. To me it was like hip-hop just misrepresented itself because that’s not who we are, we are people who have fought threw the struggle and we came up from the ground, we’ve paved the way for people to be entrepreneurs to come into corporate America.” (Necole Bitchie)
Michele also said her comments were not just about Ross, but directed toward hip-hop as a whole.
“Collaborations especially are about unity in the African American community. The first thing I’m thinking when I go into the studio with a rapper is “Wow, this is going to the great for our community.” So that’s what I said on twitter and that was taken to every kind of blog site that I can think of and people were very upset about it. But at the end of the day it wasn’t necessarily to Rick, it was to how we represent ourselves to a population and the way that we represent ourselves outside of our beat box and outside of our boom box, and outside of our stoop.” (Necole Bitchie)
The singer’s frustrations with Ross hit the Internet late last week.
“Who stands off at an award show because they don’t win? An award is winning at being as “stuck in a category” as possible. Congratulations to all the trophy holders who won at being the most like every one else. I could have sworn hip hop was on the come up. But apparently rapping is about venting, bashing, chauvinistic pigging, and EGO. Not cool. Don’t LET me start rapping. (album in stores november 30th) They say…I’m eclectic. I’m underrated. I’m different. Well If I win an award it’s because I paved a way. Every award I’ve won was new in it’s category. You know why? Because I’m amazing at being my d*mn self. Grammy – best alternative R&B song Centric award – Soul Approved Etc. Have u even heard of those categories? Nope. But guess what? You ain’t never seen another me. And u never will. No ego here. Why? Because it’s none needed. My award is waking up every morning and CAKING off of what I believe in by the grace of God.” (Chrisette Michele’s Tumblr)
Check out Rick Ross speaking on the Soul Train Awards down below:
