Bad for Business: Dame Dash's 10 Worst Fails

March 28, 2012 - 6:11 pm by Chris Yuscavage TWITTER

Oh, how the might have fallen. Once upon a time, it really looked like Damon "Dame" Dash was on his way to becoming the next big executive in the music industry. He had the backing of one of the biggest rappers in the world (Jay-Z, for all you slow-pokes/young bucks out there). He had control of Roc-A-Fella, a record label that he helped build from the ground up. He was worth upwards of $50 million. And, he had the drive, the determination, and, most importantly, the attitude that it takes to succeed in the cutthroat world of music. Dame's boardroom rants are legendary (YouTube him!) and he appeared to be a guy who was destined go down in history.

Unfortunately, Dame is going to go down in history. But, as of right now, it's for all the wrong reasons. Over the course of the last decade, he's made one bad business decision after another. From his bitter split with Jay to his recent fall out with Curren$y—who just filed a $1.5 million lawsuit against him and claimed that Dame has been releasing his music through his BluRoc label despite the fact that they don't have an agreement in place for him to do so—Dame's career as a businessman has been sullied by a number of bad business decisions. Yesterday, he put out a statement attempting to clarify the Curren$y situation. But, in doing so, he just made the whole situation seem even worse—in a nutshell, he basically blamed Curren$y's management for forcing him to make the move—and made himself look like he'd fallen out of touch with the way the music business works.

It's obviously not the first fail Dame has experienced, though. So in honor of his latest folly, we decided to put together a list of Dame Dash's 10 Worst Fails. We respect your G, Dame, and really hope that you can get things together one day and leave a positive legacy. But you need to avoid making decisions like these if you want that to happen.—Chris Yuscavage

DAME DASH'S 10 WORST FAILS

DAME DASH 1

The Fail: Allowing Def Jam, which owned a 50 percent stake in Roc-A-Fella, to purchase the other 50 percent, which effectively severed any ties between him and Jay-Z permanently The Year: 2004 Why It Was Bad For Dame: When Def Jam purchased Roc-A-Fella, the thought was that he would have a chance to serve as the president at the company. But thanks to his frosty relationship with Jay at the time, he didn't get that opportunity. Instead, he essentially cut any ties to Jay-Z when the deal was made and his free fall from power began. This wasn't necessarily a deal that he brokered. But it was one that affected him nonetheless.

DAME DASH 2

The Fail: Creating the Dame Dash Music Group and Dash Films The Year: 2005 Why It Was Bad For Dame: When Dame sold his stake in Roc-A-Fella, he probably did so because he thought he could turn around and create companies of his own that would be successful. But, unfortunately, that simply wasn't the case. DDMG nabbed Beanie Sigel for a short time but wasn't anywhere close to being as successful as Roc-A-Fella (funny how important Jay-Z was to that label, eh?) and Dash Films produced a movie called The Woodsman but it ultimately failed to recoup all the money it cost to make. The result: Neither of Dame's brands lived up to their hype.

DAME DASH 3

The Fail: Selling 25 percent of his stake in Rocawear to partner Jay-Z for just $30 million The Year: 2005 Why It Was Bad For Dame: $30 million is nothing to sneeze at. So we can't fully fault Dame for agreeing to the deal. But it had to hurt him to hear that, just two short years later, Jay grew Rocawear sales to $700 million per year and then sold the company to Iconix Brand Group for $204 million. That means that Dame's take could have been almost doubled if he'd just held onto it for about 24 more months.

DAME DASH 4

The Fail: Launching a social networking site called BlockSavvy The Year: 2008 Why It Was Bad For Dame: To be fair to Dame, he's not the only person affiliated with hip-hop who tried to launch a social networking site that failed (ahemTIandLudacrisahem). But, his site was way more unsuccessful than any of the others, because he really didn't have a great platform to promote it (at the very least, both Tip and Luda could use their music and their interviews to give their sites a boost). As a result, he was getting less than 1,000 page views per day by the time he decided to shut the project down.

DAME DASH 5

The Fail: Letting Strike Rite Corp. reacquire the rights to the Pro-Keds brand amidst rumors of him going through some financial problems The Year: 2008 Why It Was Bad For Dame: Dame used to boast about how he never wore the same pair of socks twice. But, in 2008, he couldn't even afford to hold onto the sneaker company that he'd purchased in the hopes of building it into a powerhouse in the hip-hop community.

DAME DASH 6

The Fail: Getting his Chevrolet Tahoe repossessed because he couldn't make $700 monthly payments on it The Year: 2008 Why It Was Bad For Dame: Seven-hundred bucks isn't exactly "nothing." But it shouldn't be that hard to come up with if you're Dame Dash. Yet, he couldn't afford to make payments on his SUV, so it got repossessed.

DAME DASH 7

The Fail: Spending a lot of time and effort to create an Internet radio station called Magnet Radio that never really took off The Year: 2009 Why It Was Bad For Dame: The business model he came up with for Magnet Radio? More music, less ads. The problem with that business model? Well, for starters, satellite radio already provided that. And then companies like Last.fm and Spotify eventually threw their hats into the ring as well and made something like Magnet sound even more outdated. It wasn't a terrible idea. But we imagine that a lot of resources went into Magnet. And, for what? Exactly.

DAME DASH 8

The Fail: Having his two Tribeca lofts foreclosed upon and auctioned off for well below what he still owed on them The Year: 2010 Why It Was Bad For Dame: Well, first the obvious: Dame lost not one, but two pads that he purchased in New York City. Secondly, both houses sold for significantly less than they were worth, so Dame looked even worse for the wear afterwards.

DAME DASH 9

The Fail: Admitting that he owes more than $2 million to the IRS and is "broke" The Year: 2011 Why It Was Bad For Dame: It's one thing for us to think Dame is going through some tough times. It's another to hear him actually admit it. And that's what he did last August when he revealed that the IRS was auditing him and that he was struggling to make ends meet. "I owe way more than $2 million in taxes," he said. "I'm f----- up. If I say I owe $2 million to the government and I got it, they're coming to get it. I ain't got it."

DAME DASH 10

The Fail: Getting charged for selling liquor without a license at his DD1972 gallery in Tribeca The Year: 2011 Why It Was Bad For Dame: After years and years of experiencing business fails, it seemed like DD1972 was a good thing for Dame. He was getting involved in music again. It looked like he was happy. And his stock was on the rise. And then this happened and whatever positive energy existed around DD1972 quickly disappeared, leaving Dame back at square one. And thanks to this latest lawsuit involving Curren$y, it seems he's still stuck there.

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