Here’s a Refresher on Why Dame Dash and Jay-Z Are at Odds
While it may be hard to believe now, there was a time when Dame Dash and Jay-Z were thick as thieves. As Dame gets ready to have his one-third share of Roc-A-Fella Records auctioned off by the federal government next week, it begs the question of how Jay-Z and Dame’s relationship got to this point.
As two young entrepreneurs, Dame and Jay rose up together in New York City, kicking off their partnership ahead of the release of Hov’s seminal debut Reasonable Doubt in 1996. Their union was birthed from a shared belief in building a company bigger and better than the majors consuming the music landscape at the time. Well, that and Hov admitted to MTV that no one else would sign him at the time.
“I had to put [Reasonable Doubt] out myself, no one would sign me, they thought I was terrible,” Jay said at the time.
As Reasonable Doubt kickstarted an exciting buzz around Hov, his follow-up album, In My Lifetime…Vol 1, would go on to debut at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 a year later, in 1997. Dame knew how to capitalize on Jay-Z’s powerful momentum, and in 1999, Dame organized the legendary Hard Knock Life Tour, which featured a lineup of Hov, DMX, Method Man, Redman and DJ Clue. The tour grossed over $18 million and established Roc-A-Fella as one of the most exciting record labels to watch.
Shortly after the tour, Roc-A-Fella’s foundation started to show cracks. Rumors of mismanagement percolated through the industry, as Dame and Hov reportedly became at odds over how to move the company forward. The tension between the two executives started to come to a head around 2002. While Jay was vacationing in the Mediterranean Islands, Dame was in talks with Dipset’s Cam’ron and State Property’s Beanie Sigel to be appointed vice president positions within Roc-A-Fella.
Jay allegedly couldn’t stand Cam, and told The Source soon after Jim Jones let it slip about the ongoing talks of Killa assuming the VP role.
“That’s not taking effect as of yet,” he told the magazine at the time. “I think the talk is a little premature as of right now.”
More business deals started to fall through shortly after, including plans for a Harlem amusement park called Roc-A-Fella Great Adventure: The Roc Venture, and a Roc-A-Fella film based on the label’s rise. So by the time Dame and Hov renewed Roc-A-Fella’s contract with Def Jam for a reported $20 million in 2004, things were at a boiling point. The massive payday was $19 million higher than the label’s original 1997 deal, but Dame was reportedly blindsided after Hov called to meet Dame at an upscale New York restaurant. Jay had been appointed as Def Jam’s President and CEO. The remaining 50 percent stake in Roc-A-Fella had been sold to Def Jam, and Dame viewed Jay’s move as the ultimate betrayal.
“At a certain point, I got ready to depend on my other artists,” Dame said of that moment in a 2006 interview with NY Mag. “I started putting together an army—Kanye, Cam’ron, Beanie, the Diplomats. I figured Jay gave me time to prepare.”
Dame also pleaded to be left with the Roc-A-Fella name.
“Go ahead and take the money and the job, but don’t take the name—don’t take Roc-A-Fella with you,” Dame told NY Mag. “I didn’t say please, but I might as well have.”
Jay offered that Dame could hold on to the Roc-A-Fella name only if he gave over the masters to Reasonable Doubt. Dame refused to do it.
“He said, ‘It’s business,'” Dame told the magazine. “But we were always supposed to be about more than business, Jay especially…I did everything I possibly could so that he didn’t have to raise his voice. He just had to whisper something in my ear and I’d take care of it. The people I fought with to make money for him, Lyor Cohen and Kevin Liles, he’s made friends with. He hangs out with Puff now. It’s like if your brother leaves you.”
After the deal was finalized, many of the Roc’s biggest artists, including Ye, Memphis Bleek and Peedi Crakk, remained with Jay instead of signing with Dame. Cam’ron, meanwhile, accepted a buyout and went to Warner Music.
Affiliates of both men have since been torn on exactly what led to Roc-A-Fella’s downfall. Speaking to NY Mag, Roc-A-Fella’s former general manager, Al Branch, said Dame “takes everything personally, way too personally,” while Lyor Cohen recalled Dame throwing temper tantrums when he didn’t get his way. Yet the artist Shawn Pen, who works with Dame, told the magazine that the music executive kept in touch when Pen went to jail, while Jay never reached out, citing Dame’s passion.
Regardless, Dame didn’t go down easy. Dame stormed into a meeting with Def Jam officials, and in a venomous rant, caught on camera, Dame tore apart Def Jam’s former general manager Randy Acker for trying to meet with Roc-A-Fella artists behind his back. Rumors also emerged in 2022 that Dame made a pass at Beyoncé while she was with Jay-Z, which angered the mogul even further.
As time passed, Hov would go on to achieve billionaire status, kickstarting Roc Nation, Roc Nation Sports and much more, while multiple financial woes would befall Dame. Then, in 2018, Dash was fired from his director role in the film Dear Frank, with the film’s producer Josh Weber claiming in a since-deleted Instagram post that the music mogul was intoxicated on set and unfit for the directing chair. Dash pushed back and said the film was made at his Sherman Oaks, Calif. home with his own equipment, thus making Dear Frank his personal property.
In 2019, Weber sued Dame for copyright infringement and defamation after attempting to remarket Dear Frank as a film called The List. Weber won an $805,000 judgment, and a judge ordered Dash to turn over his remaining 33.3 percent shares of Roc-A-Fella to the U.S. Marshalls Service to satisfy the payment.
With the auction set to take place on Aug. 29, it marks the end of a tumultuous era for Dame Dash. Jay-Z’s lawyers also notified the courts earlier this month that Roc-A-Fella’s ownership of Reasonable Doubt ends in 2031, and filed to have the entire ownership of the project transferred to “one Shawn Carter/Jay-Z.”
While Dame has since apologized publicly to Jay and all the other Def Jam affiliates he may have wronged, the history of Roc-A-Fella is still filled with so many rumors. The public likely won’t ever know the full story of how one of the most promising labels in a generation fell by the wayside.