>http://www.celebritynetworth.com/articles/celebrity/how-damon-dash-blew-through-a-50-million-fortune/
>
>How Damon Dash Launched Jay-Z And Roc-A-Fella Records Then
>Blew Through A $50 Million FortuneRandom Celebrity ArticleBy
>Brian Warner on March 15, 2015
>
>In the late 90s and early 2000s, hip hop entrepreneur Damon
>Dash was on top of the world. At the time, Dash was the CEO of
>the hottest rap label in music, Roc-A-Fella Records, with
>powerhouse roster artists like Jay-Z, Kanye West, Memphis
>Bleek, Beanie Sigel, DJ Clue and Juelz Santana. Dash was also
>the CEO of the wildly successful Rocawear clothing line which
>was reportedly generating annual revenues of $350 – $450
>million. As if this wasn't enough, Dash was testing the waters
>in Hollywood by executive producing the critically acclaimed
>2004 Kevin Bacon film "The Woodsman". Perhaps most
>importantly, without Dash, the world would likely never have
>heard the name Jay-Z at all. With the above resume, you'd have
>to assume that today Damon Dash must be worth hundreds of
>millions of dollars and is presiding over a dynasty that
>rivals Russell Simmons, Diddy or Dr. Dre, right? Unfortunately
>that is not the case. Today Damon Dash is not only broke, but
>he owes millions of dollars to the IRS and has had several
>properties seized through foreclosure. How did this happen?
>The story of how Damon Dash launched Jay-Z's career and
>Roc-A-Fella Records then blew through a reported $50 million
>fortune is a sad and shocking cautionary tale.
>
>Dash Meets Jay-Z
>
>After getting expelled from three different high schools,
>Damon Dash fell into a bad crowd and began selling drugs.
>Dealing earned him plenty of cash but it came with a price.
>Damon quit the drug game after seeing too many friends end up
>dead. Thankfully, Damon quickly discovered that he was a born
>promoter. He and a group of friends launched a mini business
>throwing parties and promoting clubs. One night, he announced
>that the first 100 girls in line at a club opening would get
>free bottles of Moet Chandon champagne. A line around the
>block formed hours before the doors even opened, and while
>Damon actually lost money on the promotion, he solidified his
>reputation as the hottest promoter in New York. Soon Damon
>decided he could be just as successful promoting musical acts
>as he was clubs. Through his cousin's step father, Damon
>landed his first management client, a rap group called Future
>Sound. Not long after, Dash had arranged for Future Sound to
>sign a deal with Atlantic Records under an executive named
>Rodolfo Franklin. In addition to being a record executive,
>Franklin moonlighted as a DJ under the name "DJ Clark Kent".
>It was Rodolfo who, in 1994, first alerted Dash to an
>ambitious former drug dealer from Brooklyn who was looking to
>launch a rap career. That rapper's name was Sean Carter, soon
>to be known as Jay-Z. Jay-Z was unlike anyone else in rap at
>the time. He was the fastest rapper Damon had ever heard and
>he didn't write anything down, instead reciting every rhyme
>straight from memory. Furthermore, like most popular artists
>of the day like DMX, Snoop Dogg, Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac,
>Jay-Z didn't rap about murder and crime. Jay-Z's lyrics tended
>to focus mainly on living a lavish Playboy lifestyle filled
>with girls, money, boats, cars and champagne. Bling Bling!
>
>Roc-A-Fella Records Is Born
>
>At the time, Jay-Z was a bit of an underdog in the music
>industry. He had tried and failed for years to secure his own
>record deal but was rejected for being too old or not
>appearing hard enough. Jay didn't fit the mold of fellow
>typical Brooklyn rappers who wore gold teeth and sang
>exclusively about dealing drugs and killing people. With Jay-Z
>as his partner, Damon Dash founded Roc-A-Fella records. The
>name was a play on oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, the richest
>American of all time who died with an inflation adjusted net
>worth of $340 billion. The name was also a nod to a famous
>Brooklyn drug dealer named Rocafella who Jay-Z idolized as a
>young hustler. That Rocafella is the one who died of AIDS and
>is immortalized in the NAS song "Ether" ("Rocafella died of
>AIDS, that was the end of his chapter And that's the guy y'all
>chose to name your company after?").
>
>Damon wanted Jay to film a music video as fast as possible but
>there was just one problem. Roc-A-Fella Records had no money.
>To raise cash, Damon sought an investment from a well
>connected street hustler named Kareem "Biggs" Burke. Damon
>took 100% of Burke's $16,000 investment and poured it into
>producing a music video for Jay's song "In My Lifetime" on the
>Caribbean island of St. Thomas. Burke also arranged for Jay
>and Damon to have access to a wealthy local kingpin's mansion
>and speed boat for the video:
>
>The gamble paid off and soon Roc-A-Fella record's only artist
>was getting courted by all the major record companies.
>Unfortunately, none of the major labels would agree to one of
>Damon's outrageous demands. Damon Dash demanded that
>Roc-A-Fella would maintain ownership of Jay-Z's master
>recordings. Owning the master would turn out to be a brilliant
>financial decision as Jay-Z's back catalogue still sells
>millions of units, even almost 20 years later. Only one record
>company was willing to acquiesce to such insane demands, a
>little known label called Freeze Records. As fate would have
>it, shortly after signing Jay-Z, Freeze Records was sold for
>scraps to Russell Simmons and Lyor Cohen's Def Jam Records
>after experiencing severe financial setbacks.
>
>Roc-A-Fella Records Rises To The Top
>
>Russell Simmons and Lyor Cohen's leadership combined with
>Roc-A-Fella's sheer talent and hustle helped Jay-Z's debut
>album "Reasonable Doubt" to sell over 1.5 million copies in
>its first year. A year later Jay's album "In My Lifetime, Vol.
>1″ would sell another 1.5 million copies. By 1998, Jay's
>album "Hard Knock Life" would sell a whopping 12 million
>copies world wide making Roc-A-Fella the most important label
>at Def Jam. The ensuing 54-city "Hard Knock Life" music tour
>generated $20 million in profits. Simultaneously, Damon and
>Jay had launched a clothing line called "Rocawear" and a brand
>of vodka called "Armadale Vodka". Rocawear and Armadale's
>sales exploded every time the products appeared in one of
>Jay's videos. In the year 2000 Rocawear's sales generated
>revenue of $50 million per year.
>
>The Downfall Of Damon Dash
>
>Between 2002 and 2004 Damon Dash went on a tear starting
>companies, signing new artists and generally living the life
>of a super successful hip hop mogul. He had amassed an army of
>mega-talented future stars like Kanye West, Cam'ron and Beanie
>Sigel. Roc-A-Fella had survived the 9/11 attacks (which
>happened the same day Jay's album "The Blueprint" debuted),
>Jay-Z's arrest on assault charges and the tragic death of
>Dash's girlfriend Aaliyah. Rocawear had expanded to five
>different clothing and shoe lines and was bringing in $350 –
>$450 million per year in annual sales. Damon was even
>producing movies like the critically acclaimed Kevin Bacon
>film "The Woodsman".
>
>Fittingly, Dash lived a very opulent life that reportedly
>included butlers, private chefs, bodyguards, a mansion in
>Beverly Hills, a Tribeca loft, a $35,000 per month London
>apartment and a $400,000 Maybach. Dash was also famous for
>only wearing his shoes, socks, jeans and shirts once, before
>tossing them away. Unfortunately, all was not well with the
>one person who mattered most, Damon's most talented artist and
>business partner Jay-Z.
>
>Jay had increasingly grown tired of Damon's ever growing ego
>and paranoia. The employees at Roc-A-Fella, Def Jam and
>Rocawear were terrified of Damon's never ending temper
>tantrums over the smallest of issues. He fired dozens of
>talented executives and burned bridges left and right. For his
>part, Damon began to resent Jay's increasing distance from
>their company and new alliance with Def Jam honcho Lyor Cohen.
>Rumors flew throughout 2002 and 2004, that Damon and Jay were
>breaking up and no longer speaking. Tensions came to a head
>after Jay-Z and Kareem Burke refused to allow Damon to spend
>$3 million on a single print ad campaign for Armadale Vodka
>featuring Kevin Bacon and Naomi Campbell. From that point on
>Jay and Damon really were not speaking anymore. Damon was also
>being excluded from many high profile meetings at Def Jam
>regarding his own artists. The writing was on the wall.
>
>The Breakup
>
>On December 24, 2004, Jay-Z asked his old friend Damon Dash to
>meet him at an Italian restaurant in Manhattan called Da
>Silvano. Prior to this meeting, the three Roc-A-Fella founders
>had already agreed to sell their label to Def Jam for $10
>million, but Dash was shocked by another piece of the deal
>that he did not see coming. Each partner would take home $3
>million, but only Jay would be promoted to be the President of
>Def Jam. Even worse, Jay refused to allow Dash to keep the
>"Roc-A-Fella" name. The final blow occurred when all of
>Roc-A-Fella's artists were offered the option to stay with Jay
>at Def Jam or go with Damon to a new label of his own forming.
>Most artists, including future superstar Kanye West chose to
>stay with Jay.
>
>The few artists who went with Dash to his new label saw their
>albums bomb on the charts and the new record label venture
>quickly imploded. On the other hand, Damon and Jay were still
>connected via Rocawear. They each still owned 25% of the
>company. After the Kevin Bacon/Naomi Campbell fiasco, Dash was
>invited to a meeting at an upscale hotel room in New York.
>When he asked why they were meeting at a hotel room instead of
>the Rocawear offices, the partners replied "so no one will
>hear you scream". By the end of the meeting, Dash was expelled
>from the company with a $22 million buyout that reportedly
>only resulted in $7 million in cash.
>
>Foreclosures
>
>Betwen 2004 and 2009 Damon launched and shuttered a string of
>failed ventures. His new record company, Roc La Familia,
>folded, as did clothing line The Damon Dash Collection. Dash's
>wife divorced him and he was sued for $15 million over an
>alleged rape. Shockingly, by April 2009, Damon Dash, who at
>his peak had an estimated personal net worth of $50 million,
>was flat broke.
>
>In his divorce proceedings, Dash revealed to a judge that he
>actually owed $2 million in back taxes and was in the midst of
>foreclosure on two New York city apartments. He was also being
>sued by several NYC law firms and various other creditors for
>lack of payment. His Chevy Tahoe had been repossessed after he
>could not keep up with the $700 monthly payments. Dash was
>forced to vacate his $9 million Tribeca New York home which
>was later sold in foreclosure for $5.5 million. Meanwhile,
>Jay-Z would go on to sell Rocawear to Iconix Brand Group for
>$219 million. Jay also sold millions more albums for Def Jam
>and in 2008 signed a new $150 million record deal with Live
>Nation. Today Jay-Z is married to Beyonce and has a personal
>net worth of $475 million. Damon Dash is still trying to
>hustle his way back to the top, but only time will tell if he
>can reach the same heights.
>
>