'It'll only affect Ross if Ross allows it to affect him,' says Akon, who was also the subject of a Smoking Gun exposé.
By Shaheem Reid, with additional reporting by Shawn Adler

Ludacris
Photo: MTV News

Rick Ross' alleged prison-guard past, which he has denied time and time again, is still a hot topic in the hip-hop world.

If there is anybody out there who knows firsthand what Rick is going through, it's Akon. Just as it did with Rick Ross, TheSmokingGun.com tried to blow up the singer's spot several months back, claiming it had proof that he didn't serve as much time in jail as he claimed in interviews and songs. In fact, the site said Akon pleaded himself out of serving any prison time at all.

"It'll only affect Ross if Ross allows it to affect him," Akon said last week in New York of the flak his friend is getting. "Had I gone out and entertained the article, it would have blew the article out of proportion. Wherever they got their facts or information from, let that be what it is. You got your story out, thank you very much. I bow to it and keep it moving. Now, if you wanna entertain it, then you're gonna open up more worms you probably don't want opened up. So all Ross has to do is keep focusing on his music."

Akon insisted that the Smoking Gun exposé had zero effect on his career. Who's to question that? He's working with Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston now.

"The whole purpose of Konvict Music was to grab ex-convicts, felons," he said. "People head in that direction and steer them in the opposite direction. Just focus on my past and try to contradict whatever it is I might have said or lived and don't focus on the positive things I've done in society in general. If you have an article, at least balance it out. Let the people know the good things I've done, the schools I've built. The kids I feed in Africa. Don't just say, 'He wasn't locked up for three years.' I don't care if I was locked up for one day. It's that experience that allowed me to become that person who I am, to make a better society for who is listening."

The backstory Akon has told everyone is that before making music, he served time in the clink for being apart of a car-theft ring. He's obviously moving past that. When it comes to Ross, some fans are saying his street credibility is compromised or downright contradicting whether he was, in fact, a prison guard.

"People know what type of dude Ross is right now," Akon's artist Kardinal Offishall chimed in at the same shoot in New York. "[They know] how thorough of a dude he is now. He doesn't have to prove himself to anybody. That's what an insecure person would do."

"I'll be honest with you, man," Ludacris offered about the situation. "When I heard about it, I honestly thought to myself, 'Some of them correction officers are some of the most crooked individuals.' Whether he did that or not, it's all what you take from it."

'Cris inferred that even if Ross was a prison guard, it didn't mean he has falsified his raps. He could have done dirt as well.

"It's a lot of crooked cops out there. They manipulate the system," Luda added. "So I'm just being real. When I heard about it, either way — if he did it, if he didn't do it — it could still be crooked from it. That's what it all comes down to. So that's Ludacris' two cents on the whole Rick Ross situation. To be real with you, man, if that's how you want to manipulate the system, that's how you do it. ... You get in the system. There you have it."

Rick Ross' next LP, Deeper Than Rap, is due later this year, according to the Miami native.