Dame Dash Talks Jay-Z
It’s hard to believe it’s been 15 years since Jay-Z’s classic 1996 album, Reasonable Doubt, was released.
To celebrate classic albums on their anniversaries, VH1 started a new new monthly series, Album-Versaries.
For their first installment, VH1 spoke with Roc-A-Fella co-founder Dame Dash, who reminisced about the Roc album that was a beginning of a dynasty:
Because we believed in [Reasonable Doubt] so much, you couldn’t even tell me that it wasn’t going to be the best album that was ever made.
It’s funny because it became that.
Years later when you reflect, you’re like, you were so arrogant and everyone said you were a Fawking asshole because you were so arrogant but I was right.
I said ‘he will be the greatest rapper of all time’.
I said that 15 years ago not to put it all on me. It was a lot of fighting.
It was at a time when people told me he was the worst rapper.
I had been shopping him and everyone told me he raps too fast so I said I’ll just do it myself.
I always go back to that now. Once we got into business, other people made money off of what we did and we had partners.
All we did was become a slave to their agendas and we didn’t even realize it.
I just remembered being manipulated just because we were young.
I remember certain little things that were done to manipulate…some worked and some didn’t.
I’ve seen a lot of people that I care about get twisted. Those days were fun because I respected everybody 100% so it was unconditional love, no jade. I miss those days.
After a highly -publized split in 2004, Dame Dash and Jay-Z ended their business relationship, but the Roc-A-Fella dynasty will always be remembered as one of the greatest label runs in Hip-Hop history.
More on VH1’s Album-Versary with Dame Dash is here.
