How Rick Ross and Jeezy squashed their beef after their infamous Atlanta fight
Rick Ross’ upcoming album, Set In Stone, will feature a healthy range of huge artists, including Kodak Black, T.I. and Gucci Mane. Jeezy was also recruited to jump onto the album, which isn’t the first time that he and Ross have worked together on music.
But the fact that this particular pair are able to collaborate so amicably represents a marked change in their relations. Ross and Jeezy once had major issues with each other, a beef so severe that, in 2012, things even turned physical and caused a great deal of trouble.
Reports emerged in the wake of the 2012 BET Hip-Hop Awards in Atlanta that a brawl had erupted at the ceremony. The trouble apparently started backstage, with the crews of both Ross and Jeezy getting up close and personal with each other. The pushing and shoving between them spread to outside the venue and into the carpark, where police eventually had to be dispatched to break things up.
Rumours spread online at the time that things had gotten really serious, with claims that guns had been fired even beginning to circulate. The Atlanta Police Department had to later step in to put these more extreme accounts to rest, announcing that no arrests had been made, no guns had been fired, and nobody had been seriously injured.
The brawl had been fairly intense, but nowhere near as bad as some had been led to believe. All the same, it undeniably marked a terrible moment for Ross and Jeezy, who had big issues with each other at the time. Something had to be done.
Jeezy, during a 2022 appearance on Drink Champs, explained that it took the intervention of another significant hip-hop figure to help bring the simmering feud to an end. DJ Khaled, whom Jeezy said he trusted, convinced him to sit down with Ross to work things out.
Jeezy admitted that, in his mind, this “sit-down” between him and Ross would entail “50 of my homies and whoever he brings.” But that’s not at all what Khaled had meant. He insisted to Jeezy, “No, you gotta sit down. Just you and Ross.”
Jeezy followed Khaled’s advice, and, as he met with Ross and they worked things out, he discovered that his former rival was now “ready to do the ‘War Ready’ record.” That was a song that would go on to feature on Ross’ 2014 album Mastermind, and it represented the squashing of their beef in no uncertain terms.
Ross, who is no stranger to a feud, has meanwhile claimed that he once successfully managed to ease tensions between Jeezy and another rapper entirely. Speaking publicly at the FTX Arena in Miami in 2021, Ross said that Freddie Gibbs once had serious issues with Jeezy, but that he had intervened to get things under control. Ross said he convinced Gibbs to rethink his beef with Jeezy, which, after giving it some thought, he was apparently receptive to.