S. Samuel
Roc-A-Fella Records co-founder Damon "Dame" Dash is reportedly seeking $5 million from a former attorney for doing shady business behind his back and hurting a deal with rapper Curren$y.
According to reports, Dash is accusing lawyer Janis Shen of being responsible for a multitude of business problems.
Media mogul Damon Dash wants his former attorney to pay $5 million for allegedly striking deals behind his back and ruining a lucrative album distribution deal with rapper Curren$y. Dash and his companies, media collective DD172 and BluRoc Records, sued Janis Shen in New York County Supreme Court, claiming she not only swindled them out of a $15,000 retainer fee, but also ruined their lucrative deal with Island Def Jam to distribute Curren$y’s third album, “Muscle Car Chronicles.” Dash, former CEO of Roc-A-Fella Records, claims he had an oral agreement with the rapper, whose real name is Shante Franklin, to create three albums together: “Muscle Car Chronicles,” “Pilot Talk I” and “Pilot Talk II.” (Court House News)
The music mogul’s main issue with Shen reportedly dates back to late 2010.
Dash says he hired Shen to handle the legal releases, contracts, mechanical licenses and paperwork needed for each album. She was also supposed to execute a written agreement for the joint venture with Curren$y, according to Dash. But in November 2010, Dash claims he discovered that Shen had arranged a deal with Dash’s in-house producer, Ski Beatz, and Terri Walker and Trademark, two artists who were then in negotiations to produce albums with Dash. The trio’s collaboration was released and distributed by rival internet music producer iHipHop.com, according to the lawsuit. “In orchestrating these third party deals, Shen represented to the subject artists that she was acting in her capacity as a legal representative of DD172/BluRoc,” the complaint states. (Court House News)
Coincidentally, this all comes months after Curren$y dropped a $1.5 million lawsuit against Dash.
Curren$y initially admitted that he and Dash hadn’t spoken for a while, but this week, he told MTV News’ Sway Calloway that they will figure things out on their own. “I rolled that up too, that’s in the ashtray,” Curren$y said of the lawsuit against Dash. “I’m way too cool for a lot of that stuff, because I would always have to talk about it. I didn’t even do it because I didn’t feel like talking about that. So we’ll figure that out. We’re men.” (MTV)
Back in May, the former Cash Money rapper said matters between him and Dame soured.
“No. Not talking to him, but I hear stuff from his lawyers and his lawyers hear from my lawyers,” Curren$y said when asked if he stays in contact with Dash. “[How’d the situation get like this?] Sh*t, nothing ever really happened. Stuff gets sold and I feel like I don’t know what happened on my end. So we’ll see. Yeah, its business man, I got to do my thing. How could I do this and do all of that? I got to do this. Absolutely, that’s all I have to say, that’s all I can do.” (Complex)
Check out some past Dame Dash footage below:
