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Jaya Franklin
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College of Law
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ATLANTA – For the fall 2023 academic year, law students will study the legal life of Grammy® award-nominated, multiplatinum recording artist and serial entrepreneur Rick Ross.
Ross, also known as the “Biggest Boss” will be the focus of the fourth installment of the “Legal Life Of…” course at the Georgia State University College of Law.
The class provides law students with the unique opportunity to gain hands-on legal experience in the practice area of entertainment law by studying the career, contracts and legal transactions of Rick Ross. The students will have the opportunity to apply those legal principles to a real-world business. The course was created and implemented by Mo Ivory, professor of practice and director of the Entertainment, Sports & Media Law Initiative at the College of Law.
“As a lover of rap music, hip-hop culture and in celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Hip-Hop, I could not think of a better time to study the career of a visionary like Rick Ross,” said Ivory. “When I began my research on Ross, I realized early on that my students would learn about a businessman who turned his love of music into an empire that includes massive real estate holdings, food and beverage franchises, investments in the car and bike industry, literary works and corporate equity ownership."
In class, students will dive deep into the contracts that helped to shape the celebrity’s career, section by section, with input from the lawyers who negotiated them. They will learn legal concepts like drafting, interpreting and negotiating deals with a focus on varying types of client representation, along with risk and crisis management inherent in today’s entertainment industry.
“The 'Biggest' meets the classroom," Ross said. "I’ve always been a student of the game, and I look forward to being able to teach the next generation how to keep hustlin'."
He has a massive career that spans music and countless business ventures. Ross is a real estate investor, the CEO of Maybach Music Group, a franchise owner of more than 25 Wingstop locations, the owner of several Checkers and Rally’s restaurants, partner in Sovereign Brands, the CEO of Rick Ross Car & Bike Show and the Boss Up Conference. He also holds partnerships in the cannabis industry and more.
More about the course:
The “Legal Life Of…” course was launched at Georgia State Law in 2019 by Professor of Practice Mo Ivory. Since then, student participants have studied the legal life of Ludacris, Kandi Burruss, and Steve Harvey. The course is a part of the curriculum for the Entertainment, Sports & Media Law Initiative. The initiative focuses on entertainment, sports, media, and intellectual property law.
About Rick Ross:
Rick Ross is a Grammy® Award-nominated multi-platinum superstar, a two-time New York Times best-selling author, and a business magnate.
He went from ‘hustlin' (literally) to visiting former U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House. In the wake of his platinum-selling 2006 classic debut “Port of Miami,” he has scored billions of streams, picked up dozens of multiplatinum certifications along with several No.1 charting albums appearing on the Billboard 200.