Think back on all we’ve learned about Rick Ross since his 2006 debut album Port of Miami. He sells dope off the iPhone. His girls look like money bags. He wakes up to lobster bisque and reclines to the finest crab meats. Ross has pushed pomp at the expense of disclosure ever since he teased a serviceable personal style out of the paint-by-numbers Miami-Dade pimp chronicles of his early career. But what kept these impersonal missives afloat was a theatrical kingpin flair that seemed to expand in relation to attacks on his dominance. In 2009, when 50 Cent unearthed evidence of Ross’ history as a corrections officer, he brushed it off and struck back with the deliciously plush and cartoonishly prideful Deeper Than Rap and Teflon Don. After a health scare on an airplane in 2011, he puffed his plume further with the Miami Vice villainy of 2012’s Rich Forever and God Forgives, I Don’t. Ross has spent much of his career running defense against claims he’s lost his touch, even as his kingly seafood diet has been usurped by diced pineapples, but he’s had a tougher time than usual in the past year, as threats from gangs, show cancellations, and a drive-by after a birthday celebration raised salient concerns about his wellbeing. A flippant line about spiking a girl’s drink on trap baron Rocko’s hit “U.O.E.N.O.” reportedly cost him a lucrative promotional deal with Reebok. His Maybach Music Group’s Self Made Vol. 3 struggled to connect with a national audience, while a series of fiery solo singles skirted the Billboard Hot 100 entirely. A proposed release date for his sixth studio album Mastermind came and went this past December, and while Ross assured fans he was just “putting final touches on the album,” it looked like the untouchable Maybach Music empire had hit a rough patch.
Mastermind finally lands this week tasked with saving face after a bad year. But God Forgives rode fans’ willful suspension of disbelief raw as Ross anointed himself a pirate, a king, and a president over an album adorned in the gaudiest of embellishments. It doesn’t help that Mastermind finds him slipping from character into caricature. Many of the song concepts here are wan, and much of the wordplay is spent. On “Sanctified”, he’s the “fresh David Koresh,” soliciting grilled cheeses and fellatio from concubines. “BLK & WHT” houses Ross’ third joke about the George Zimmerman trial (“Trayvon Martin, I’m never missing my target”), and the same song’s chorus drably quips that “a nigga black but he sellin’ white.” “Walking on Air” is fashioned entirely out of biblical airballs like “I’m into fashion, nigga, John the Baptist” (whose signature outfit is said to be the hair of whatever wilderness animal he managed to skin) and “Half you niggas Judas, I’m the son of Moses” (whose progeny were passed up as his successors in the priesthood in favor of his nephews). When he’s not falling flat on bad puns, he’s busy hawking his Wingstop restaurants’ lemon pepper chicken wings.
With Ross’ hammy tendencies fading from strength to liability, it’s up to label money and collaborators to save this thing, and bless them all, they tried. Mastermind shines when guest raps from Ross regulars Meek Mill, Lil Wayne, and Jay-Z light a fire under his ass. Wayne and Jay’s great chemistry with Ross proves mutually inspiring for both; “The Devil Is a Lie” nets a better Jay verse than can be found on the majority of Magna Carta Holy Grail, and Wayne’s attack closer “Thug Cry” delivers an intensity recent releases have lacked. Kanye rolls a fixation on Chicago drill and Atlanta swag rap cadences, a rousing vocal from soul great Betty Wright, spectral synths and sinewy lows from ratchet maestro DJ Mustard, and Ross’ trademark overindulgence into the regal pomp of “Sanctified” for the album’s high watermark. “Sanctified” is an outstanding entry into Ross and Kanye’s catalogue of stunners, but it never feels like Ross’ song. The same can be said for deep cut “In Vein”, where Ross cedes the reins to the Weeknd’s promethazine noir, showing face more than halfway in and skating after a quick verse like a guest on his own record. Similarly, “War Ready”’s bloodless, overlong summit with erstwhile Rozay nemesis Jeezy only takes off when the snowman touches the mic.
When Mastermind’s not clinging to famous friends, it’s thrashing at 90s classics for direction. Early on, following a skit playing 911 call audio from the scene of Ross’ shooting, “Nobody” remakes the Notorious B.I.G.’s unsettlingly fatalistic “You’re Nobody (Til Somebody Kills You)”. Given a shot at breaking kayfabe and speaking on the incident, Ross largely opts out, spitting street rap boilerplate in a Biggie cadence he can never quite pull off. “What a Shame” references both Wu-Tang Clan’s “Shame on a Nigga” and Camp Lo’s “Luchini (AKA This Is It)” but brings little to the table beyond French Montana’s bratty “Hanh!” ad lib. “Thug Cry” fares better employing the Billy Cobham sample that provided the backdrop for NorCal alt-rap veterans Souls of Mischief’s “‘93 til Infinity” but damn near drowns under a melodramatic sung hook and more lemon pepper wing talk. Mastermind’s sporadic 90s flair feels cursory, but it actually saves the album from a glut of productions all too often beholden to the bleating synths of mid-2000s DJ Toomp and the moody, intricate sounds of Mannie Fresh. The album could’ve used a few more J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League burners and a trap house brawler or two to lift up the sluggish pace. It wraps in just over an hour, but you’ll feel like you’ve been through much more, listening from end to end.
Mastermind finds Rick Ross in the same predicament his mortal enemy 50 Cent experienced when they squared off in 2009. He’s badly in need of reinvention after running out of recipes for his gangster shtick, but he’s too set in his ways to change direction six albums in. Mastermind gestures at Ross inviting us inside his thought process on “Nobody”, where he intimates that he sends a decoy tour bus around the on tour while traveling via private jet, and “Rich Is Gangsta”, which doubles down on the story that his stint as a corrections officer was an intentional ruse. But the moments where Mastermind gives us William Roberts the man instead of Rick Ross the gangster flick composite character with the borrowed name are scarce, and he remains committed to dialing in good life platitudes that increasingly ring hollow. Mastermind finds Ross at a Truman Show moment: his character’s reached the logical end of its universe. Going forward, he can either break out or keep up a jig he knows that we know is way past expired.
