Dame Dash slams Jay-Z labelling him as a “terrible” businessman
Dame Dash has slammed his former business partner and now estranged friend Jay-Z, claiming he was “terrible” at marketing and couldn’t run Roc-a-Fella Records. The former record executive has no end of bad things to say about Hov and continues to do so regularly.
That said, in a recent interview with former Roc-A-Fella A&R Big Face Gary on his America Nu Network podcast, Dash played down Jay-Z and his business acumen, stating, “Jay-Z was a terrible marketer. He’s the worst marketer of all time!”
Dash suggested that Hov never offered a guest verse to any of his new signees when they joined the label and didn’t give them proper promotion, asking Gary rhetorically, “Do you remember any Roc-A-Fella artist, when they had a new record of homeboy jumping on their first single?”
Gary admitted that back in the early 2000s, when Roc-a-Fella reigned supreme in hip-hop, Dash regularly called out Jay-Z’s behaviour, claiming, “Dame used to be like, ‘Yo, G, this don’t make no sense. He’s one of the owners of Roc-A-Fella Records; he refuses to go on records with his artist.’ And I used to say, ‘Yo, Jay, what the hell, bro?’
However, according to the former A&R, the response he got from Jay-Z was always the same. “[He said]‘Yo, I’m an artist too, y’all forget that?’ [I said,] ‘But Jay, if you got a hit, you’re gonna make more money!’ He never wanted to do records with no other artists.”
That said, the Harlem native recalled that Kanye West and Cam’Ron were always very supportive of new artists who joined the roster and regularly shared their platforms. Recounting this experience, he continued, “They were the ones that were a little more proactive helping out their crew were the ones that, to me, were the best at marketing.”
Although Kanye West has proven to be great at marketing himself over the years, he has also proved to be good at generating bad publicity. This is just one of many times Dame Dash has alleged that Jay indulged in shady business practices.
When Gary asked him rhetorically if he wanted to make another Jay-Z, Dash replied, “Make another Hov? Why the fuck would I make another Hov?” He then went on a rant
about Jay-Z’s handling of the company finances, declaring, “He was double dipping. We were paying him highly as an artist, and he was double-dipping from the company, which didn’t make me a lot of money. He did not generate $100 million a year for me.”
He concluded, stating that instead of making another Jay-Z he made a more profitable source of income, finishing, “I did make a Kanye, a Cam’ron. And, you know, after you do that, I don’t have to do anything else. But what I did do was the next year, I started another company called Rachel Roy and it generated over $100 million a year. So I didn’t make another Hov, I made another $100 million company.”