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I just got a copy of this week's issue of New York Magazine, which has an article discussing what Damon Dash has been up to ever since Jay-Z pulled the Rocawear rug out from under him (you can read the article online here). For those of you who have never seen it, New York is a magazine that mainly focuses on the lifestyles of wealthy Manhattanites. The magazine has always had a bit of an infatuation with Dame as he attended a few of the upper-crust schools (in the city and in Connecticut) that many of the New York journalists also attended.
There's a lot of interesting stuff in the article. Even after losing his holdings in all the Roc companies, he still owns another "record label, five clothing and shoe companies, a Swiss watch company, a vodka company [Armadale], a television-production company and a movie-production company" as well as a butler, a cook, and at least two personal assistants. I originally felt bad for Dame when Jay stole the dynasty from him, but after reading that list it looks like Dame's doing alright for himself.
After a few years of rumors and speculation about tensions between Jay and Dame, including a movie Dash produced entitled Death of a Dynasty, those rumors became reality in 2004 when Def Jam bought full ownership of Roc-A-Fella and hired Jay as president. The next year, Dash was bought out of Rocawear by Jay. As the majority of the talent in the Roc followed Jay-Z over to Def Jam, including Kanye West who has admitted he owes his career to Dash, Damon was left working with the likes of Victoria Beckham and Carmen Electra. Not the best look for a dude who played a pivotal role in the development of Reasonable Doubt and who helped change the whole rap game for better or worse, moving the spotlight from the West Coast back to New York.
Discussing the final breakup with Jay, Dame said to him at their final supper, "'Go ahead and take the money and the job, but don't take the name -- don't take Roc-A-Fella with you,' Dash recalls. 'I didn't say please, but I might as well have.'" Jay-Z said Dame could keep the Roc name if he gave Jay the masters for Reasonable Doubt, but Dame refused, and thus we have a live perfomance of the album for its 10th anniversary instead of a rerelease of the album.
Dash and his record label is now signed to Koch Records. He is about to release an album for reggae singer Sizzla and is developing another album for 15-year-old R&B singer Jasmine who he says could be "the next Michael Jackson." I'd prefer Dash focus on rap, but he seems to be devoted to creating an R&B movement. Good luck to him, but judging from his work with Roc-A-Fella R&B singer Rell, I have my doubts about this working out well.
Even though I'm sure there's no hope of it ever happening, I think the best thing for everyone involved would be for Jay to bring Dash back into the Def Jam camp. Its hard to deny the success he had working with Jay-Z in the past, and while they both seem to be doing well for themselves financially, have either of them done anything substantial in the music business since the split? Dash put out a couple Ol' Dirty Bastard remixes and I guess you can give Jay some credit for promoting Jeezy, but I can't think of much beyond that.
If Jay were ever to try to get back with Dame, perhaps he could just spit a few lines from The Blueprint's Song Cry:
You helped me get the keys to that V dot 6
We was so happy poor but when we got rich
That's when our signals got crossed, and we got flipped
Rather mine, I don't know what made me leave that shit
You can download the Song Cry track from the track's producers, Dub-K Productions here (<-- just scroll down toward the bottom of the page). Check out some of the other tracks they've produced, some good stuff on there.
On a related note, every now and then I check out the search words that people use to find this site and occasionally I'll find some pretty strange requests. Here is one that came in yesterday:
The antichrist may be a rapper, but as I wrote before, it ain't Jay-Z.
6/15/2006 10:23:33 AM posted by Fresh