Posted by Andrew Unterberger on 10/19/2011 at 11:33 AM News

The Popdust Files: concerts, health, rick ross

The downside to lionizing our pop-culture heroes for playing through pain—whether it’s Dirk Nowitzki playing in the NBA finals with the flu or Jessie J serving as house artist during the VMAs with a bum leg—is that it encourages them to attempt to do so, even when doing so is a really, really bad idea. So it was with Rick Ross when he went back in the air in an attempt to make his Friday night gig in Memphis, despite having suffered a seizure on board a flight earlier that very day. It was a gesture of professionalism that fans won’t quickly forget, but if he had died or been more permanently incapacitated when he had a second seizure aboard the jet, it obviously wouldn’t have nearly been a price worth paying.

It’s doubtful anyone in Atlanta will be terribly downtrodden, then, at the news that Rozay will be canceling his gig at the Tabernacle this Friday night, as the rapper continues to recuperate from his genuinely terrifying health scares. “We are disappointed he had to cancel, but completely understand that Rick Ross needs to take care of [himself] at this time” said concerts director George F. Baker III in a statement. “We hope he is better soon.” As undoubtedly do we—after the last couple of years he’s had, creeping his way into the hip-hop subconscious like no one outside of Young Money’s Big Three, it’s almost impossible to imagine pop culture in his absence.

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