Neither Battle Cat nor his alter ego Cringer would be a big fan of Rick Ross' joking about a large feline extra on the set of his video for "Here I Am."
A few weeks ago, a big ol' tiger had a disagreement with his trainer. Ross — who was recently voted into the top of five of MTV News' "Hottest MCs in the Game" — maintained his South Miami swagger while witnessing the incident.
"There's a company down in Miami that keeps exotic animals," Ross recalled. "You can have whatever you want in the club. If you want some tigers, that's what it is. We called him for one scene in the video. When they got there, [the trainer] let us know that the tiger was irritated.
"One of my homies let him know, 'If the tiger gets out of line, we gonna shoot it,' " Ross added with a smile.
"Forty five minutes into the shoot, the trainer is doing his thing with the tiger, and the tiger just grabbed his a--! Did his thing. You could tell they have their own little relationship. It wasn't his first time being bit — he got bit pretty good. I wasn't too far from it.
"It was all good — the tiger was on the chain," Ross clarified. "You had to be there to see that it wasn't out of control. It wasn't crazy, he wasn't getting mauled. It was the owner/ pet thing. He plugged him good! I let [the trainer] know he had to finish my video. He wiped the blood off, it was all good. Trilla!"
The video starts with the Bawwwse and his girl chilling in his Chevy "back in the day." The woman's mother comes out and chastises her for going out with a thug. Pitbull and DJ Khaled are among the guest stars who joined Ross, Nelly and his artist Avery Storm.
"It's just that lifestyle," Ross added. "I feel like the world is yours. That's the attitude. A female that started dating me when I was young, and she stayed down when nobody believed in me. Now the world is ours and we doing big things. That's what the video is about.
"Elevation," he continued. "Going to that next level on this record with Nelly. When I sit back and look at the chemistry of [the video], it's a black boy, white boy and D-boy. A lot of people gonna be shocked when they see Avery Storm. He smooth with it!"
Ricky Ross — whose Trilla recently debuted at #1 on the Billboard albums chart — also revealed his next album will be coming by the end of the year. It's called Deeper Than Rap.
"I'mma give them my life, the streets and give them the game on this one," he promised.
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