Damon Dash is firing back at a lawsuit alleging he’s trying to auction off JAY-Z’s debut album Reasonable Doubt as an NFT.
The lawsuit, filed Friday in New York’s Southern District Court, claims that Dash was trying to sell the rights to Reasonable Doubt via digital marketplace SuperFarm as a non-fungible token without JAY-Z’s permission. The auction has since been canceled, but Roc-A-Fella is worried that Dash will attempt to auction it off on another platform.
Dash, who co-founded Roc-A-Fella Records with JAY-Z and Kareem Burke in 1995, insists he owns a third of the famed label and says he has every right to sell his share.
“He lying. That’s a whole lie. JAY owns one-third of Reasonable Doubt,” he told Page Six. “They just said that I tried to sell an NFT of Reasonable Doubt and … it’s not true. I’m not running around to different places trying to auction off Reasonable Doubt. I’ve been working with one platform and that’s SuperFarm.”
Added Dash, “And the thing is I own a third of Roc-A-Fella Records and I can sell my third if I feel like it.”
Dash says that JAY-Z filed suit after offering to buy him out of his share of Roc-A-Fella for $1.5 million, which he rejected. Dash says the lawsuit is to prevent him from selling his third to someone else.
Dash went on to slam JAY-Z’s offer. “JAY himself tried to buy my third and it was a crackhead deal. He offered me like I was Pookie or something from New Jack City,” he said in reference to Chris Rock’s crack addict character from 1991’s New Jack City.
“That’s what corporate always does to the independent guy. It’s a case of corporate versus independent and how they try to bully me—but they are trying to bully the wrong one,” said the 50-year-old mogul. “It is the same fu**ing game. It just seems like they so mad if I get money. I don’t know why but why can’t I sell my third to who ever I want, whenever I want? I don’t have to ask.”
He continued to blast his business partner as allegedly controlling and vindictive. “He thinks Roc-A-Fella Records is his—it is ours—and he’s doing all this on Roc-A-Fella’s behalf,” said Dash. “He’s got ‘only one man to eat’ syndrome and ‘everybody else got to work for him’ syndrome and ‘kiss the ring and we’re gonna mess up his reputation’ syndrome if you look under the hood. It continues to happen.”
