Free Enterprise

Album: Black Market (2015)
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Songfacts®:

  • This song acts as the intro to Black Market. It sets the stage for some self-reflection as Rick Ross raps about how he feels his image is perceived.
  • Ross wrote the rhymes in the summer of 2015 when he was incarcerated for kidnapping and assault charges. "I recorded it the first day I came home," The Bawse told Billboard magazine. "I wanted the album to feel like you're walking into a room and just completely open your mind to all the possibilities. Everything is a go, so I made the title 'Free Enterprise.' It costs you nothing to dream as big as you can. My feet are on the ground and I just wanted to take you through my timeline. It most definitely (set the tone) and I recorded it the way it played out in my mind."
  • The song features John Legend. Previous tunes on which the pair worked together include Ross' own "Magnificent" and "Rich Forever" plus Meek Mill's "Maybach Curtains." "John Legend is brilliant," said Ross. "I feel he may be my best collaborator when it comes to delivering that undeniable soulful sound, and he does it in such a classy way."
  • The song features a controversial lyric about assassinating Donald Trump:

    Assassinate Trump like I'm Zimmerman
    Now accept these words as they came from Eminem


    Walmart reportedly removed the Black Market album from its inventory after a writer named Mark Dice contacted the company about the lines.

    Ross claims the line is simply a metaphor, and refers to "lyrical assassination" (in case he's ever in a rap battle with The Donald).

    "That's me being a poet, putting words together in my art form, with no violence in my heart at all," Ross told Rolling Stone. He added that his cameraman used to caddy for Trump, and he says Trump is "cool as f--k."

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