Rick Ross was a prison guard at 19 and built a $150 million empire before turning 50
Billionaires Africa | 07.06.2026 01:11
The most important 18 months in Rick Ross's life are not the ones his fans know best. They are not the months following the release of Hustlin in 2006, when Jay-Z offered him a multimillion-dollar deal with Def Jam and Port of Miami debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling 187,000 copies in its first week. They are the 18 months from December 1995 to June 1997, when William Leonard Roberts II was a correctional officer at the South Florida Reception Center in Doral, Florida, watching the consequences of other people's choices play out on a daily basis and deciding, with whatever certainty a 19-year-old can muster, that he was going to leave before those choices became his context permanently.
