While speaking with Hip Hop Motivation, Roc-A-Fella Records co-founder Dame Dash offered some insight into his past relationship with Aaliyah.

According to Dame, he was drawn to Aaliyah because they shared the same point of view and the same perspective. He says the two were both “very authentic black,” but grew up in non-urban environments.

“She was a girl that had a point of view,” Dame Dash said. “And it was like she was known at one time younger for being a little thuggish-looking girl or whatever. But she really acted like somewhat of a non-urban chick. You know what I mean? She just was like a white girl. When you talked to her it wasn’t no hood shit with it at all. Not even a little bit. She understood it. And that was like me, kinda…Overall I went to private school. So, we liked a lot of the same things. We had the same perspective. We were very authentic black. But we had other experiences.”

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He later revealed that Jay Z, who knew Aaliyah before he did, tried to also get with the singer. Dame went on to explain that she was usually willing to give someone a shot, but was also quick to place them in the “friend zone.”

“So, I was going at her,” he said. “But Jay was going at her. And he knew her before I did…It was just a situation where Aaliyah was the type of girl that would give you a shot. She didn’t care what people thought or whatever. So, she’ll date you and be your friend. You might end up in the friend zone. A lot of times that’s what happened. She just wasn’t—Or at least that was my experience…We just hung out. That was my dude.”

Towards the end of the interview, Dame compared his relationship with Aaliyah to that of Cam’ron and his current girlfriend, JuJu.