Dame Dash has revisited the dispute that fractured his and JAY-Z‘s once-successful business relationship.
In an interview with The Art of Dialogue, the Harlem rap mogul explained how he walked away from Roc-A-Fella Records after Hov began working closely with R. Kelly, who infamously married Dash’s ex-girlfriend Aaliyah when she was just 15.
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“The fact that Jay was fucking with him is what used to blow my mind more than anything. I don’t know why he wanted to fuck with this guy so much. Like why? I’ve never understood it,” he said.
Dame then revealed that he confronted JAY-Z about his grievance: “Everybody knew R. Kelly married Aaliyah at 15. Everybody knew that. So was the conversation had like, ‘Yo, how you gonna go and do something with this dude?’ Hell yeah that conversation was had!
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“You think I’m soft? Pause. I was like, ‘Yo, how you gonna do a project with a n-gga that raped my muthafucking girl?’ We had the conversation. Would you still fuck with a n-gga that fucked with someone that raped your girl? So why would anyone expect me to?”
He added: “There’s a lot of other shit but that alone was the nail in the coffin for me. I was outta there, I was gone. I knew that shit was gonna blow up. I wanted no parts of that shit. So I was done with him for that.”
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Asked how Jay responded, Dame said: “You know how he is. He was like, ‘Yo, I ain’t have nothing to do with that.’ What I would love is for someone to ask him, ‘Why would you still do a project with that man knowing that he raped Aaliyah?’
“That right there was bridge burned […] I left Roc-A-Fella. It wasn’t that I got kicked out of Roc-A-Fella; I left Roc-A-Fella. I was done. I said, ‘Fuck all the money, fuck all this shit, I’m out.’ I was left no choice.”
The 53-year-old also claimed that JAY-Z himself was “in love” with Aaliyah and said he found it “even more disrespectful” that the rapper began working with R. Kelly on The Best of Both Worlds shortly after her death in 2001.
Dame Dash and JAY-Z’s tumultuous relationship has been back in the spotlight of late thanks to the sale of the former’s shares in Roc-A-Fella, Inc.
After a much-publicized back-and-forth, Dash’s one-third ownership stake in the company (which owns the rights to Jay’s Reasonable Doubt and is separate to Roc-A-Fella, LLC, which houses the rest of the label’s catalog) was ultimately sold for just $1 million at auction.
The auction was held to help satisfy the record executive’s extensive debts, which include $8.7 million in back taxes, an $800,000 lawsuit settlement to filmmaker Josh Webber and $145,000 in unpaid child support.
The shares were purchased by the state of New York, who are expected to flip them for a higher sum to pay off Dash’s sizeable tax debt.
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Following the auction, Dame wasted little time in swiping his former business partner, saying on his America Nu Network platform: “What this really taught me was that, in the world, homie isn’t as big as he portrays.
“I thought more people would be interested in buying it […] I thought people would at least show up. No one even showed up! […] Jay didn’t even make a bid. He didn’t think it was worth $3 million. A billionaire, supposedly.”
