Free Enterprise

Album: Black Market (2015)
Play Video

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."

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Little Big Town

Little Big TownSongwriter Interviews

"When seeds that you sow grow by the wicked moon/Be sure your sins will find you out/Your past will hunt you down and turn to tell on you."

Millie Jackson

Millie JacksonSongwriter Interviews

Outrageously gifted and just plain outrageous, Millie is an R&B and Rap innovator.

Don Dokken

Don DokkenSongwriter Interviews

Dokken frontman Don Dokken explains what broke up the band at the height of their success in the late '80s, and talks about the botched surgery that paralyzed his right arm.

Martyn Ware of Heaven 17

Martyn Ware of Heaven 17Songwriter Interviews

Martyn talks about producing Tina Turner, some Heaven 17 hits, and his work with the British Electric Foundation.

Sending Out An SOS - Distress Signals In Songs

Sending Out An SOS - Distress Signals In SongsSong Writing

Songs where something goes horribly wrong (literally or metaphorically), and help is needed right away.

John Lee Hooker

John Lee HookerSongwriter Interviews

Into the vaults for Bruce Pollock's 1984 conversation with the esteemed bluesman. Hooker talks about transforming a Tony Bennett classic and why you don't have to be sad and lonely to write the blues.