Shortly after the release of his latest album, The Off-Season, J. Cole played his first game in the Basketball Africa League. The Dreamville rapper had signed with the Rwanda Patriots to play six matches with the team. Three games have already gone by and while it may be exciting for some to watch Cole play professional basketball, his stats haven’t been great. The rapper has only scored five points in those three games, a performance that caused one BAL player to criticize his roster spot.
“For a guy who has so much money and has another career to just come here and average, like, one point a game and still get glorified is very disrespectful to the game,” Terrell Stoglin, a guard for AS Salé, said. Some people agreed with Stoglin, while others, like Rick Ross, did not. In fact, Ross took to his Instagram Story to respond to Stoglin’s statement.
Rick Ross speaks on people talking about J Cole going pro in Rwanda pic.twitter.com/2OgMysvoJx
— 2Cool2Blog (@2Cool2BIog) May 25, 2021
“In no way is this meant to be disrespectful, but first and foremost, should no Black man’s dreams be censored nor limited,” Ross said. “Comin’ from a brother, I think you would understand what building these types of relationships would do for the business. For the eyes on the industry, you know what I’m sayin’?” He added, “You should be there to support the brother. If he made one point on the first game, by the time he get to the 10th, you should make sure he makin’ six a game, you understand?”
You can listen to Ross’ reply in the video above.
