Hip-Hop MCs are known for clever wordplay, but there is a growing group of them who’ve gotten pretty serious about walking what they talk. Miami MC Rick Ross just joined the ranks of rappers who are putting their money where their lyrics are by investing in land and property.
The “Hustlin’” MC recently bought 87 acres of land for $1 million in the Atlanta suburb of Fayetteville, Georgia. The land is not far from the former prison guard’s massive multi-million dollar mansion, TMZ reported.
Ross initially made the announcement about the purchase via Instagram. He posted a photo of himself with real estate agent Mitt Conerly holding a “SOLD” sign over the property’s for-sale sign. The caption read “Promise land just got BIGGER.”
Ross is in good company, as some of his hip-hop peers — including Atlanta native Clifford ‘T.I.’ Harris and Chicago native Kanye West — have been purchasing large swaths of land and encouraging others to do the same.
“We were just in the studio having a discussion … and I just feel the need to share it. All y’all getting this money from the government … ain’t no more mink coats in the store and it’s summertime, ain’t that some s—t.” T.I. said in a video clip on Instagram Sept. 9.
“Ain’t more Cartiers, it ain’t no more Louis Vuitton, go get you some property please. Please y’all, go buy some property,” T.I. continued. “It could be a patch of dirt Bruh. Go to your hood and find … it ain’t got to have no house on it or nothing, just buy it, just buy it and hold it, you dig what I’m saying … now that’s it, I done told you, you can’t say you didn’t know.”
The Atlanta rapper has been practicing what he preaches as he has created the Buy Back The Block program to save his old neighborhood’s lifelong residents from gentrification.
T.I. partnered with fellow Atlanta MC Killer Mike and others in 2017 to buy the Bankhead Seafood Building and he’s been purchasing land ever since. To date, T.I. said he has purchased six buildings and spent more than $2 million.
“Now, with the BeltLine and Mercedes-Benz Stadium a stone’s throw away, there’s an incentive to redevelop,” T.I. told Inc Magazine in a 2018 interview. “But I didn’t want it to be one of those situations where luxury condos go up, and people who are native are pushed out to the fringes because they can’t afford to live there. I wanted to provide development that would allow people from the area, who love the community, to be able to afford to stay.”
During one of his infamous Twitter rants on Sept. 15, West echoed T.I.’s sentiments, telling his followers to become owners of their intellectual property and invest in physical property.
“Buy Land,” West tweeted. He followed it up with several more tweets, reiterating his statements. “Use the government money and buy land,” We have to evolve” and “Buy Property” he added.
West has purchased two ranches in Wyoming, with sale prices valued at $14 million each at the time they were purchased, according to Business Insider.
