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#damondash #damedash #hiphop #blackexcellence
Damon "Dame" Dash was once the most powerful CEO in hip hop. At the hight of his power he was worth $50 million and headed all the way up. Ten years later, he found himself flat broke. So what happened?
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Damon Dash was a huge name in hip hop in the 90s and early 2000s
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He was the CEO of not just Rockefeller Records, but also the CEO of Rock Aware, the widely successful hip-hop clothing line
0:12
Whenever Jay-Z was mentioned, Damon Dash would also be brought up as the two were probably the most successful partnership in hip-hop
0:19
Today, Jay-Z is a billionaire, but where is Damon Dash? How did he go from one of the most successful CEOs in hip-hop to being broke
0:28
In today's video, we'll look at the rise and fall of Damon Dash
0:37
Damon Dash's career started out as a club promoter back in the 1990s
0:42
He was actually dealing drugs before that, but decided to quickly exit the field after seeing the demise of so many friends
0:48
Damon saw big success as a club promoter, though, and decided to try his luck promoting artists
0:53
That's when he heard about this up-and-coming and super talented ex-drug dealer turn around
0:58
rapper named Sean Carter, aka Jay-Z. At the time, Jay-Z had already tried and failed multiple times to secure a record deal
1:06
After meeting with Damon Dash, the two decided to launch their own record company called
1:11
Rockefeller Records. I took Jay-Z and shopped him to every single label, and they all said no
1:19
I had to do it myself. Why did they say no? Either he was too old, he rapped too fast, they just didn't have it
1:26
So we were like, we'll do it ourselves. One of the first moves made by the pair was to shoot a music video for Jay-Z's song in my lifetime
1:34
Damon secured a investment from a street hustler named Kareem Burke aka Biggs and the music video was a success putting Jay on the map That when all the major record companies came knocking but Damon had one huge ask
1:49
He insisted Rockefeller Records would maintain ownership of Jay-Z's master recordings. A deal was signed with a small label called Freeze Records, which was later sold to Russell Simmons
1:59
and Lear Cohen's Death Jam Records. Jay-Z's debut album, Reasonable Doubt, sold over 1.5 million copies in its first year
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In 1999, Jay-Z's album Hard Knock Life sold over 12 million copies worldwide
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and the accompanying tour generated over $20 million in profits. Damon Dash was on top of the world, but there was even more success to come
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Next, the pair launched Rockaware and a vodka called Armadale Vaca. Both were successful with Rockaware pulling in $50 million per year in sales
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and Rockefeller kept on adding more artists that would become super successful like Kanye West
2:37
and Beanie Siegel. Rockaware was growing fast, bringing in an estimated $400 million in sales every year
2:46
Damon Dash was living the life of a hip-hop mogul with a mansion in Beverly Hills
2:50
a $35,000 a month London apartment, and a Tribeca loft. But it appears as Damon's power and success grew, so did his ego and temper tantrums
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Rumors have it, employees at all of Damon's companies were terrified of his outburst
3:06
But those employees were not the only ones growing tired of Damon's antics
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His business partner Jay-Z was also slowly distancing himself from Damon. It alleged that Jay and Damon stopped speaking after Jay Z and business partner Kareem refused to let Damon spend million on one print ad campaign for Armadale Vaca featuring Kevin Bacon and Naomi Camel Soon after Damon was being left out of important meetings
3:34
The official breakup occurred when Rockefeller was sold to Death Jam for $10 million and Jay Z was promoted to president of Death Jam
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Most of Rockefeller's artists chose to stay with Jay Z at Death Jam instead of leaving with Damon Dash to a new label of his own
3:50
Jay and Damon's tie was broken one more time when Damon was bought out of his 25% ownership stake in Rockaway
3:56
which resulted in only $7 million cash received by Damon. See people like me and Dane, we'd be together every day
4:03
Because our drive was for Rockefeller. You know what I'm saying? So we didn't have anything else to do
4:09
So we'd be together every day. Every day, our waking day, we was worried about doing something else to make Rockefeller grow
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In the beginning, we'd jump in a van, we'll go to Maryland, we'd go anywhere
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You know what I'm saying? And now we got our focus is everywhere, different things
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There's rock of wear. There's state property. There's, you know, there's Armadale
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There's so many different things as well as things that we always want to do on our own
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Which is, you know, when people see that, you know, it's drifting the part
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We've always been polar opposites. You know what I'm saying? But when people see us drifting apart of doing different things like that
4:46
it leads to, like, talking, and then that just grows. and it grows
4:51
But I mean, I'm the kids, you know, I'm his son's godfather
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You know what I'm saying? That's my brother. Me and him we work this thing happened and we both realize our dreams together so we going to always have that bond So it not a beef it just that it just growing You know what I saying That sometimes growing means growing apart Not in the bad way
5:15
Like I liken it to like an L.A., you know, like I said, baby face situation
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You know, we all got things that we want to do. We want to do separately. You know what I'm saying
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Which is cool. Like I'm happy for him. You know what I mean? As well as, you know, he's happy for me
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It's just that it's part of life. It's part of growing up. Damon Dash's many new business ventures like Damon Dash Collection Clothing Line failed
5:39
The man that was once worth $50 million now found himself flat broke by 2009
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To make things worse, Damon's wife, Rachel Roy, filed for divorce in 2009
5:49
It was in the divorce proceedings that Damon revealed that he was broke
5:53
It stated that he actually owed $2 million in back taxes and was in the middle of foreclosure on his two apartments in New York City
6:00
On top of that, he was being sued by multiple creditors for a lot of money. lack of payment. Damon's Tribeca home was later sold in foreclosure for $5.5 million
6:09
Ten years later, Damon found himself in legal trouble again when he was arrested for failing
6:14
to pay more than $400,000 in child support, most of it to his ex-wife, Rachel
6:20
It's hard to say what really ultimately contributed to dames to climb. You know, my take on dame
6:27
has always been, he's a great guy with a good heart whose mouth just got in the way too much
6:34
And that's just coming from my own personal dealings with him. Damon Dash continues to dabble in different business features, from TV and film to publishing a magazine to fashion
6:44
Although he has a long way to climb back up, one thing you can never take away from Damon is his hustle
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