Rick Ross’s sixth studio album in Mastermind has proven to be the creative genius the ubiquitous MC has been claiming for months on end. He bogarted the #1 spot on the Billboard Charts previously held by ScHoolBoy Q and shows no sign of letting off the throttle.
The rap game’s biggest “bawse” made The Kayo Store–found on N. Fairfax in Hollywood–the place to be seen yesterday, March 11 as he hosted a meet-and-greet with the skateboarder giant DGK. Playing into the hands of their culture, the Dirty Ghetto Kids created limited edition memorabilia including t-shirts, cups and skateboard decks illustrated with the colorful art of the Mastermind album cover designs. Families were given the option to choose between a deck or photos for Ross to sign and the superstar rapper obliged every request for more than hour. He was devoid of his trademark shades as if he wanted to look every fan directly in the eye and thank them for their support, especially seeing he was removed from his fallback club environment.
Mastermind co-star French Montana, who appears on the album’s biggest single, “Nobody” later entered the venue to show his physical support as he thumbed through his Instagram account as Ross commanded the crowd’s attention. Ditto for “Wake Up In It” rapper Mally Mall.
Hip-Hop Wired was on hand and witnessed the incident-free event first hand and even nabbed DGK founder Stevie Williams’ partner Eli Soto on how Ricky Rozay became involved in the skater world to begin with. According to Soto, “the marketing director of DGK and Spiff TV [of MMG] have a great relationship and we’ve been long waiting on this album. [Ross] has been telling us how dope and different the album is and we all agreed that we had to bring the music to the skateboarders in a legit way.”
Ross’ new album has mostly garnered positive reviews around the rap hemisphere. Hip-Hop Wired’s Deputy Editor, Aqua even appeared on REVOLT TV and dubbed it with a “8.5/10” rating on just a few preliminary listens. Add in to Ross’ increasing popularity, kids of all preferences are getting involved in the movement.
“The turnout speaks volumes,” Soto continued. “To have a store on Fairfax that just opened six months ago and to have success like this is crazy. Us and Ross, we have so many plans going forward from this point on. We have some capsules planned up which I can’t so too much about but we have a lot of sh*t going.”
Check out the gallery to see the glorious pictures of the last night’s DGK x Azione PR event. They are picture proof of rapper’s giving back to the communities that put them on top.
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Photo: Hip-Hop Wired, Third Floor Network, Azione PR
