She had skin that looked like it smelled good and a face like Whitney Houston in 1987.

The room was fragrant with cocoa butter, and a slender blonde woman in black leggings had both hands up the legs of his shorts. When I arrived this afternoon, Ross was reclining in a cushioned dining chair wearing camouflage cargo shorts, a blindingly white T-shirt, and giant Louis Vuitton sunglasses. Since I arrived in Atlanta nine hours ago, I have met at least a dozen men at Rick Ross’s house/recording studio, all of whom kind of work for him and are also hoping to get their big break from him. It’s not hard to figure out who that someone might be. Then it occurs to me that a better explanation is that Rick Ross has disappeared. It occurs to me that it might be the weed, the same way it feels like you’re driving ninety miles an hour when you’re crawling along at five.

But despite all this activity, it feels like the house-the sense of industry that’s been ratcheted up for the nine hours I’ve been here-has slipped into standby mode. It’s mesmerizing, like watching someone who’s really good at knitting. One of them is stripping the tobacco out of several packs of grape Swisher Sweets and then reassembling them into precise blunts. I confuse two of the other guys who work for Ross-one’s name is Red and the other’s is Black, and I think Red wears a black hat. Darren, a kid from Milwaukee, is still in the basement, editing what must be just server-melting amounts of Rick Ross video. Ross’s bodyguard, a gentle-looking man with sleepy eyes who is nearly seven feet tall, lopes through the kitchen still wearing this strange headset that makes him look like he’s getting translation at the U.N. Though I do notice a strange lull in the house, a subtle shift in metabolic state. Rick Ross lives in his own personal time zone, and when you’re around him, you’re subject to it. Normally, due to domestic circumstances, I’m asleep by ten. It only occurs to me after midnight that it might be past 8 P.M.

Rick ross videos on youtube