The real reason Rocafella broke up is because Hov didn't want Biggs around- Dame Dash

[Long Live The Kane]

Dame is one of those people who falls out with everyone and never figures out he’s the common denominator in every conflict …he has some nerve talking about how others should feel embarrassed considering his current state of affairs…had his prized asset seized and sold off to pay child support, teeth fell out of his mouth while doing some clown shyt on social media, and is a reoccurring guest on the washed up celebrity YouTube gossip interview circuit….never would imagine he would go out so sad, thought he had too much pride

 

[threattonature]

If I was Jay, I can't see myself going around Biggs and Dame to get Def Jam's shares so I can be majority owner.

That's like so far outside of who I am as a person. I would feel guilty doing my partners like that.

But to your point, I empathized with Jay. That's why I said he's allowed to go off on his own. He is entitled to running his own shop 100%. I also could've sworn I said earlier that Jay had the right to not want to deal with Dame's personality anymore. So your criticism is unwarranted.

If it was ME though....I would've taken the Def Jam job but, I would've found another way to figure out the Rocafella split. I also wouldn't have been upset about the Reasonable Doubt Masters because I would've acknowledged that Me, Dame & Biggs were selling that album out of our trunk. I didn't do it alone. It was less of MY Album and more of OUR business. Im the kinda nikka that I try not to do people dirty and if I had Hov's wealth and power at that point in time, there's no need to dig the knife in further. You already won. I would've been more concerned about all the shyt I was about to do Post-Rocafella so I would've divided everything as equally as possible and moved on.

How's it digging the hole deeper though? He was letting him keep Roc-A-Fella. Listening to Dame he says he's trying to build the Roc into a real record label and making all these moves to make the company bigger. Listening to Dame now and judging by his actions at the time Jay was just an artist and he was the one who built the Roc into a powerhouse. Cool. Then if Jay is just an artist it's only right to give Jay his masters for his role in helping build the company. Same way all these labels eventually give their artists their masters. That'd be like Russell Simmons denying LL his masters because "we all played a part in these albums blowing up Def Jam". Jay was 1/3 owner so giving up his stake in that was giving up a lot of money. To me Jay saying y'all can keep the Roc was him being a stand up guy. That shyt was way worth Reasonable Doubt masters.

 

[Piff Perkins]

I wonder what the real reason will be in 3-5 years when he’s asked again and comes up with a new bullshyt answer.

Jay and Biggs are cool to this day. This is just lazy divide and conquer shyt that he has to know won’t work. But it gets clicks because everyone assumes he’s gonna say it was something related to the recent (bs) allegations.

 

[RennisDeynolds]

Biggs must have stopped answering his calls now


I think Biggs and Jay had problems at one point but they spoke and squashed it. Now they back tight breaking bread

 

[No1]

I wonder what the real reason will be in 3-5 years when he’s asked again and comes up with a new bullshyt answer.

Jay and Biggs are cool to this day. This is just lazy divide and conquer shyt that he has to know won’t work. But it gets clicks because everyone assumes he’s gonna say it was something related to the recent (bs) allegations.

Biggs was still cool with him until he tried to throw dirt on Jay with the Aaliyah and R. Kelly shyt. He took to social media after that basically saying you can’t build with certain people.

 

[Kamikaze Revy]

I love how 20 years later we still get quarterly updates on "OK, now this time, this is the real real real reason the Roc broke up pause"

 

[nieman]

I don't think he would honestly. Dame has too much ego. The Roc was always going to break up imo. They started off like the hood version of Warner Brothers (which was obviously started by a family of brothers who all had equal say) but as Jay gained power and notoriety, he didn't want to split decision making with Dame and Biggs anymore nor put up with Dame's personality. And he shouldn't have to. But Dame shouldve been shrewd enough to know that Jay was gonna pull that move once got famous enough. It was hella obvious in hindsight. And a better business man wouldve peeped game and set himself up with other investments once Jay started acting funny. Like there's zero reason why Dame shouldn't have had the same investment track record that Nas had except Dame was sleeping. Going on....I'm not mad Dame wouldn't sell the Reasonable Doubt masters. Jay was acting like he did it all alone when Biggs and Dame saw it more like a startup business they founded together. With all that said, Dame is not gonna go be a kiss ass to Jay and act like he's Maverick Carter to Jay's LeBron. Not when they all built a 9 figure business together. Is it smart? IDK. But if Dame was smarter, he would've never ended up in that situation in the first place.

I think that Dame also had a ceiling. Of course you can tell Roc was his life, and his baby, so he was hard pressed to let that go and it took a lot of him when he lost it, but he was already an exec (middleman) in an industry that was looking to x out the middleman. If he didn't want to truly venture over into other venues...real venues and not those flash-in-the-pan hustles...there was nowhere else for him to go outside of the head of another entertainment conglomerate. Of course, his lack of industry friends closed that door for him, so he always had a ceiling. The rest of those execs just kept trading seats.

Jay was an artist. And while he was an exec on paper, he really wasn't at Roc - as noted by everyone that was around. There's always the opportunity for an artist of his caliber to become an exec, especially as long as he cultivated relationships with those already at the table.

I do think Dame is more than just a marketer. He had vision and a know-how and the drive to get things done...and they're all learning on the job anyway. I think when everything else fails, he goes back to what he knows, which is hustling. So he doesn't want to invest a good amount of his own money into something substantial, with no steady stream of income available...so he goes with the cheapest ideas/brands/strategies that come his way, hoping they take off. He also won't hire a team to help him...not one which he has to pay. He basically at a point of trying to hit the lottery, or jackpot of penny machines. They did the same at Roc, they just had more leverage for higher return ventures.

We can surmise that there's no place in the music industry for him, but he should've went full fledged into movies...starting a production company, finding investors, funding flicks/scripts/directors...and getting them on major streaming services. Of course, he would still be playing roulette with how much return he would get, but if he could get the indie ones into festivals, I'm sure he could've found a way to take off that way.

 

[Yehuda]

I wonder what the real reason will be in 3-5 weeks when he’s asked again and comes up with a new bullshyt answer.

Fixed.

 

[Harry B]

If Jay-z had younger stans like Kendrick or Drake, or weirdos like Nas, someone would put together a compilation of Dame's 65 different reasons for why the Roc broke up


It's obvious that Jay and Dame grew apart and since then they have grown even further apart as far as who they are and how they move.
They sold their remaining 16.6 % each of Roc-a-fella, Jay bought their shares in Rocawear and Jay became a "regular" employee while Dame ran a new Roc-a-fella, of course named after himself. Even collaborated with each other for the Beanie Sigel release and more.

It probably wouldn't have been sour unless, Dame with Dipset started dissing Jay outta the blue. And it probably got worse when they realized that Jay later finessed some cacs for Rocawear and sold it for a lot more than it was worth

 

[Ozymandeas]

How's it digging the hole deeper though? He was letting him keep Roc-A-Fella. Listening to Dame he says he's trying to build the Roc into a real record label and making all these moves to make the company bigger. Listening to Dame now and judging by his actions at the time Jay was just an artist and he was the one who built the Roc into a powerhouse. Cool. Then if Jay is just an artist it's only right to give Jay his masters for his role in helping build the company. Same way all these labels eventually give their artists their masters. That'd be like Russell Simmons denying LL his masters because "we all played a part in these albums blowing up Def Jam". Jay was 1/3 owner so giving up his stake in that was giving up a lot of money. To me Jay saying y'all can keep the Roc was him being a stand up guy. That shyt was way worth Reasonable Doubt masters.

Are you serious?

Going to your former partners on some "I'm the majority owner now"...."I became the CEO of Def Jam and in turn received control of Rocafella so you might as well give me what I want or Imma take it" is definitely digging the hole deeper.

Do you not have friends? Would you go to your friends like that? Like damn nikka Its okay to admit Jay was grimy.

And your LL example doesn't fit. LL received his Masters because that was his sole way of making long-term residual income as an artist. He didn't get a third of Def Jam too. He wasn't an owner with Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons. Jay got X times more than LL ever got and Jay still had his Masters. It was just split three ways. And you ignore that most rappers don't get their Masters period. It usually doesn't happen.

 

[Ozymandeas]

Nah I would have twisted the knife even further

These are the thing we know of

Dame was doing some foul shyt the more we put together

At some point Jay got tired and said “oh you wanna play ok let’s play”


Why does the person with the most always have to be the better man?

Let’s not act like dame was a angel that’s the issue dame likes to act like he don’t nothing wrong

Jay can do whatever he wants. Dame can say whatever he wants in response.

How you want to twist the knife further but, then get mad and quote people on the Coli for saying he had a knife

You want to move grimy but, you don't want anyone to say anything about it smh. If you gonna be a villain, own that shyt.

 

[Harry B]

Are you serious?

Going to your former partners on some "I'm the majority owner now"...."I became the CEO of Def Jam and in turn received control of Rocafella so you might as well give me what I want or Imma take it" is definitely digging the hole deeper.

Do you not have friends? Would you go to your friends like that? Like damn nikka Its okay to admit Jay was grimy.

And your LL example doesn't fit. LL received his Masters because that was his sole way of making long-term residual income as an artist. He didn't get a third of Def Jam too. He wasn't an owner with Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons. Jay got X times more than LL ever got and Jay still had his Masters. It was just split three ways. And you ignore that most rappers don't get their Masters period. It usually doesn't happen.

He didn't take anything from anyone, he got back his rights which they sold. The rest was sold to Universal Music Group.

They sold Roc-a-fella, and his price for signing with Def Jam was his catalogue which would've gone to him eventually in any event, since he was the writer of it. And this was before streaming significantly increased the values of catalogues too.

I will never understand how people don't want artists to have their own masters when it's black people doing the pillaging. Luckily, US laws do not give a fukk about such people and revert rights back to creators after some time.

 

[Ozymandeas]

No disrespect breh but you’re like the #1 Jay-Z fan on this website. Have a good Monday.

 

[AKM-95]

They snaked each other on deals, though. From Jay x-ing Dame out of the Fade to Black doc deal, even though Dame was the one that orchestrated it, and all of the backdoor stuff with DJ that Jay was doing, at hindrance to the actual Roc stuff...they were both moving like players on a team with conflicting interests.

Once they (Dame) tried to run it like an actual record label, that was the beginning of the end of it. The only thing is that it's really hard to duplicate that success, so here we are with the look backs.

The thing is dude had a good rebuild going with the DD172 stuff he was doing with Curren$y, The Black Keys, and Mos Def and that got messed up.

 

[TrapHouse Rock]

He ironically told the real reason in the video.

“I was a businessman man leveraging Jay’s celebrity to do business”

Co-dependent relationships only function when all parties have an essential function.

Facts

Jay hasn't truly 'needed' Dame since around the turn of the century

Dame played himself hard in the 2000s when all he had to do is maintain a good relationship with Jay