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Georgia State University

I had seen the ads for Rick Ross’ GSU homecoming performance all over campus, but it wasn’t until he cancelled the concert a few days beforehand that I wanted to learn more about him. Like many information seekers out there, my first instinct was to search Wikipedia. Then I realized there was a more trustworthy way to access information about Rick Ross quickly.

Discover is a search service provided by the Georgia State University Library that searches across a massive amount of resources from one, simple search box at library.gsu.edu. It’s lightning fast and delivers effective, customizable results. It’s a great tool to get dependable information quickly and find out more about a topic.

The first result that came up when I typed in “Rick Ross” was an e-book by another person named Rick Ross. He doesn’t have an uncommon name, so I customized my results by doing the following:

• Limited the source types I was searching to academic journals, periodicals, news and electronic resources.
• Refined my results to full-text online.
• Refined search to the following subjects: rap musicians, rap (music), music industry and music.

Here’s some things I learned about Rick Ross:

• He says that he used to deal cocaine in Florida. As protection he carried a .45 with an infrared scope.
• He met his current collaborators the Mayback Music Group online, by using rap blogs to scout out new talent.
• Three of his albums debuted at number one on the Billboard charts, until Teflon Don, which came in second to an Eminem album.
• Despite his other claims, evidence shows that Ross was once a correctional officer in Florida. Because this is contrary to the image he projected of himself he originally lied about this past employment.
• 50 Cent and Ross have feuded with one another because the former recorded a video with Ross’ ex Tia. In the video Tia confirms that Ross was a correctional officer and claims Ross doesn’t provide adequate financial care for the child they had together.
• Presumably Ross’s GSU concert cancellation is connected to his current health. He had two seizures aboard airplanes last week. Most reports maintain that neither drugs nor alcohol led the to seizures.

Thanks to Discover I was able to learn all this and more about Rick Ross in only a matter of minutes. The best part is that I know the information I read is trustworthy because it came from valid sources hosted by the library.

Photo courtesy of Joshua Mellin via Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Bibliography:

• ALEX, C. (n.d). Rick Ross: ‘The Boss’ Denies Prison Guard Past. Day to Day (NPR)
• BUGS BUNNY vs. RICK ROSS. (2009). Flex, 27(4), 364.
• CARAMANICA, J. (2011, May 28). In the Hip-Hop World, Blogs Mean Business. New York Times. p. 1.
• Scaggs, A. (2008). Q&A: Rick Ross. Rolling stone (USA), (1048), 28.
• (2011, October 14) Rapper Rick Ross ‘100 Percent OK’ After Having Seizure on Plane, International Business Times
• (2011, October 15) Rick Ross Suffers Seizures Twice: Neither Alcohol nor Drugs Caused Emergency, International Business Times