Rick Ross – Pop + Hip-Hop Artists From Miami

Rick Ross the Boss, aka Ricky Rozay, was born in Mississippi, but he grew up in Carol City, a Miami outpost and the same hood as fellow list-maker Flo Rida.

The Maybach Music Group founder attended Albany State University in Georgia on a football scholarship, but he could not avoid the gravitational pull of music or the glamour of the musical thug life.

He took his stage moniker from an infamous drug trafficker and named his first album after his home city -- 2006's 'Port of Miami' refers to the city being an intake center for cocaine shipments.

It was eventually revealed that Ross, born William Leonoard Roberts II, was a corrections officer in Florida in the '90s, a claim the big man initially denied.

Watch the Rick Ross 'Hustlin'' Video