One of the reasons I got so much ass in high school was because of my years of dedication to my debate team. While on this team, I had to learn to defend stances that I didn’t necessarily agree with. This may be one of those cases.

I feel bad for Rick Ross. I felt bad for him after the whole parole officer revelations and I feel even worse now that 50 Cent is launching a multimedia beatdown of epic proportions. So, I’m going to try to help the guy out.

*Sigh* Here it goes.

Five Reasons To Root For Rick Ross

1. He’s Not A Bad Rapper — You only get one change to make a first impression and that’s definitely the case for Ricky. “Hustling” was lyrically a terrible song (“whip it real hard, whip it whip it real hard”) and I can’t defend that. In fact, Ricky’s first single and album was nothing but great beats being shit on in the bad way by an slow-talking, incompetent MC. But Rick Ross took some sort of MC growth hormone between his Port of Miami and Trilla. Don’t dismiss Trilla because it’s Ross.

“They pinching pennies while I’m muscling for meals
And that muscle be that muzzle when I stuff it in your grill
Stuffed shells thanks to crack, I crack crabs and lobsters
Not all mobsters imposters, gotcha!” — “Maybach Music”

Go back and listen. Trilla showed improvement from a star in the making.

2. “The Yankees Effect” — I remember in 2004, my dorm was full of students glued to the games when the Red Sox came back to beat the Yankees in the playoffs. They cheered for every Red Sox hit and booed the Yanks to no end. Half of the people in the rooms were cheering against the Yanks…without even knowing a single member of the Sox. 50 Cent = Yankees. Who cares if it’s Ross, this battle may have rejuvenated a career that a few of us were dying to see end. 50 has been on the ropes after being embarrassed by Yeezy’s sales and putrid sales for T.O.S. But now, he’s back on the good end of a battle which means we get more Curtis every day. And who wants that?

3. He’s A Product Of His Environment — Maybe Rick Ross knew that he couldn’t make it in Hip-Hop if the world knew he was a former parole officer. Maybe the drug dealer façade was the only way to market himself in a culture that endorses the hood. Maybe he tried to tell people the truth, but they told him to hide it for the sake of his career. Yea, that’s the ticket.

4. Fiddy Is A Bully — What did Rick Ross really say to 50 to set him off? A few lines about his baby momma and the fire? Then seemingly after twenty four hours, Curtis had a cartoon, Photoshop, interviews and an off-Broadway one-man show dedicated to Officer Rickyyy. But where was all this with Kanye? Lil’ Wayne’s diss hit the net over a month ago and there hasn’t been a cartoon yet. Face it, 50 Cent has been throwing flailing jabs in all directions for a while now. But Rick Ross gets the full attack. It seems like this is another case of the jock picking on the easy target. Now that I mention it, Ja Rule was an easy target too. But bring that arsenal around a hard to kill MC and see what happens. Whatever happened to that Nas beef anyway?

5. I can’t really come up with a good fifth reason to defend Rick Ross. So I’ll just leave it to Deputy Jones and Reno’s finest.

Respect Our Fresh!