Rick Ross is pushing back hard against the wave of mockery that followed his worst-performing album debut of his career.
Set in Stone, Ross's 12th studio album, opened at No. 46 on the Billboard 200 in its first week, moving roughly 17,000 equivalent album units — nearly 15,000 of which came from streaming. The figure represents the weakest first-week debut of Ross's career by a considerable margin.
Ross's response was dismissive. "Real Hip-Hop lovers should never get caught up in the propaganda and fake bot numbers," he said in a video posted to social media. "Go to the product. Test it. How amazing is the music?"
He continued his message with confidence. Who cares? I don't give. Long as they spending money, Rozay putting the dope music out,” he added. “That's who fight my battles with the bots and all of that."
Soon after Set In Stone’s release on July 23, Ross’ famous detractors had all the jokes for him.
50 Cent wasted no time firing back once the sales figures surfaced. He reposted Ross's poolside clip attacking him and wrote: "LOL HE GOT AWAY WITH IT FOR A WHILE, BUT ITS OVER NOW JIG IS UP!" and separately: "20 features under 10 thousand sales. Damn boy it's over."
In another post, 50 shared a photo of himself appearing to eat popcorn, captioning it: "So when your tickets don't sell, and your album don't sell what do ya do? Promote car shows and sell chicken wings. LOL."
Hot 97's The Kid Mero piled on during the July 31 episode of Mornings With Mero, zeroing in on the irony after Ross had openly called Drake "washed" after the rapper released Iceman, saying: "Come on guys, stop. Let's all leave little mans alone now, man. He did it, he dropped three mid projects. Hey man, it was fun while it lasted. You're washed."
Mero addressed Ross directly: "You thought Drake was washed, bro, and you could have benefited from the Iceman this go around, pal."
Drake's Iceman spent four consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, making it the longest-running chart-topper of 2026 to that point.
