Vice: Roc of Ages: Dame Dash's Second Chance at a Second Act. They conducted an interview a few short days after the Breakfast Club Interview. Choice quotes:
Worth a read. Man just reading through all of these different ventures Dame had that you never heard of again is hilarious. Dead @ naming your crib Poppington.
Dame Dash has strong views on family, entrepreneurship and old-school manlinessthe kind of things talking heads on Fox News and right wing radio like to discussbut when I ask him whether he realizes those things are part and parcel of the Republican and Conservative parties, his eyes narrow and his brow furrows. The veins on his neck bulge. Hes offended, angry, and doesnt see the connection between him and Republicans. Hes a Democrat. I dont think Im saying anything Obama doesnt say. He says he believes in paying taxes, even though he owes the I.R.S. back tax money, and says Republicans own oil companies, even though he has an oil company himselfDamon Dash Motor Oil. He says Im racist because I favorably compare his enterprising stewardship of the black-owned record label Roc-A-Fella Records to Suge Knight and halcyon days of Death Row Records. You compare me to a nigga thats in jail, he says. Thats racist. Compare me to someone who is white.
I get it. Sort of. If I were him, Id be offended too. Or, maybe not. Damon Dash is confusing. I am trying to figure him out. Damon Dash the character is pissed, because Damon Dash the man is hurt.
I havent been in music in 15 years. I do fashion. Compare me to Andrew Rosen, who bought Theory and Rag & Bone. I dont want to just be compared to Suge Knight. I dont want to be in the same sentence. I dont have a label. I have a division of music. I acquire companies. Im not in the music business. I dont do what they do. I buy companies. I sell companies. I create companies. I liquidate companies. I license out companies. I do a lot. I design, from the beginning, to the rooter to the tooter. I get a design, I go get the pattern, I go source the fabric, I go do the fittings. I was fucking educated in Savile Row. I learned how to make a suit in London.
Did you hear that? Damon Dash learned how to make a suit in London.
On gossip: I think men are wasting their testosterone. Stop being in mens business. Be like, Yo, Im a man with a vagina, so Im not really a man.
On therapy: Therapy is for women.
...but in its time, DD172 was quietly influential. Then in 2011, the city of New York busted the gallery for selling alcohol illegally, and the Dame Dash comeback party ended.
It was perfect, Dame says. I did everything. Nothing went wrong at all. There was no expectation. The history that got made there is priceless.
Worth a read. Man just reading through all of these different ventures Dame had that you never heard of again is hilarious. Dead @ naming your crib Poppington.