S. Samuel
Former Roc-A-Fella co-owner Damon "Dame" Dash has decided to resurrect the company he helped build with Jay-Z and Kareem "Biggs" Burke.
According to Dame, the first project under the label will be rap newcomer Curren$y‘s debut.
“[Curren$y] inspired me to dust off the chains. We brought ’em out for kicks, just ’cause we could. Then we was like, ‘F— it, let’s put it out through Roc-A-Fella.’ It was really more something he wanted to do. Basically, ’cause we havin’ such a good time, and the opportunity’s there, we was like, ‘Why not?’ … Def Jam or Universal bought the brand. I think the ‘beef’ [with us and Jay-Z] was that Jay made it clear he didn’t want me or Biggs to be a part of it. That’s really where it was at. Now that he doesn’t work for Def Jam anymore, he doesn’t have the right to use the name. So there’s no reason for us not to use it. It’s there, and it’s a brand that’s not being used. So I was like, ‘I’ll take it.’ It always meant something to me.” (MTV)
Curren$y also shared his reaction of Dame’s decision to support his movement.
“What that means, what that shows me, is that dude thinks as highly of me as I do him,” Curren$y said about releasing an LP on the label Dash co-founded with Jay-Z and Kareem “Biggs” Burke in the mid-1990s. “I know what’s behind that. We all know and the fans know what that represented at the height of it. The aesthetic of it.” (MTV)
Dash recently talked about his past financial troubles and blamed the media for building too much hype around him.
“I started to go through a lot of bad press all of a sudden,” he explains of the period following the sale of his shares in Roc-A-Fella Records and Rocawear Clothing. “Like, the recession hit everybody, but me being a businessman and motherf*ckers getting caught up in the storm, all my issues were completely public. And completely exaggerated. So the recession sh*t happens, I don’t give a f*ck.” (YRB Magazine)
He also accused a former tax accountant of stealing money from him.
“The first thing you gotta kick when you’re an entrepreneur is your ego,” Dame explained in an interview. “You can’t look like you’re doing good all the time. You gotta struggle and I don’t mind grinding, I actually like it. I’m almost addicted to it. Even when the thing with all my taxes happened, I thought, you know I made a bunch of money and I thought my accountant paid my taxes instead he stole some money out my account and didn’t say nothing. I look at that as a learning experience, it just won’t happen again, you know what I mean? I don’t regret nothing, I got too many healthy kids. You know, I got four of ’em so as long as they’re around and they’re cool, I’m good.” (Mixtatape Monster)
Check out a recent Damon “Dame” Dash interview below:
