Dame Dash: From Harlem Hustler to Hip-Hop Villain

Sir Daniel: 00:00:16

Greetings and welcome to another episode of Queue Points podcast.

Sir Daniel: 00:00:19

I am DJ Sir Daniel

Jay Ray: 00:00:21

And my name is Jay Ray, sometimes known by my governments

Jay Ray: 00:00:25

as Johnnie Ray Kornegay III.

Jay Ray: 00:00:28

What's happening good people?

Jay Ray: 00:00:29

Sir Daniel, how you doing?

Sir Daniel: 00:00:32

You know what?

Sir Daniel: 00:00:32

I'm fantastic.

Sir Daniel: 00:00:33

It's been a, an amazing week.

Sir Daniel: 00:00:37

Um, Jay-Z has had an amazing week.

Sir Daniel: 00:00:40

Well, I w- I don't know about amazing.

Sir Daniel: 00:00:43

It's been mostly amazing, specifically for, like, um, New Yorkers and Jay-Z

Sir Daniel: 00:00:48

fans specifically after his amazing appearance at, uh, the, um, what was it?

Sir Daniel: 00:00:55

Yankee Stadium, right?

Sir Daniel: 00:00:57

And of course, you know, it wouldn't be, um, a, a good hip hop show if

Sir Daniel: 00:01:03

there was, if it wasn't wrought with or fraught with, um, difficulties

Sir Daniel: 00:01:08

and, you know, shenanigans and whatnot.

Sir Daniel: 00:01:11

I do think one of the main things that came out of this, um, out of this concert

Sir Daniel: 00:01:17

series that Jay had to celebrate, uh, Reasonable Doubt and his career and just

Sir Daniel: 00:01:22

to celebrate himself, is the fact that despite having an, a, a packed arena

Sir Daniel: 00:01:33

for all three nights, having his wife, who is a mega superstar, be in the show,

Sir Daniel: 00:01:41

his daughter participated in the show.

Sir Daniel: 00:01:44

Um, he had a, a, a, a, a plethora of artists that r- love and respect him, uh,

Sir Daniel: 00:01:52

mutually come through and be on the show.

Sir Daniel: 00:01:56

There's that one guy, that one gloomy Gus, that one grampy grandpa, Chatty Patty,

Jay Ray: 00:02:09

Sh- definitely a Chatty Patty

Sir Daniel: 00:02:10

Chatty Patty propping himself up in front of somebody's camera to make

Sir Daniel: 00:02:17

disparaging comments about Blue Ivy and having her in the show, and that's ghetto,

Sir Daniel: 00:02:25

and I pay for my kids not to be in a part of street life, and to, and to say that it

Sir Daniel: 00:02:31

is cringe to have your wife, your girl…

Sir Daniel: 00:02:34

Not even your wife.

Sir Daniel: 00:02:35

Why you got Your why you got your girl cutting your hair?

Sir Daniel: 00:02:38

Man, that's cringe.

Sir Daniel: 00:02:39

Why you got your girl doing that?

Sir Daniel: 00:02:41

Pause.

Sir Daniel: 00:02:42

he is the, uh, it, he's working himself up to be… Well, he already is, like,

Sir Daniel: 00:02:47

the, the, the poster boy for a hater

Jay Ray: 00:02:53

Yeah.

Jay Ray: 00:02:54

Yeah.

Jay Ray: 00:02:55

Basically.

Jay Ray: 00:02:57

And it, and when you reflect on it, it could have all been so different.

Jay Ray: 00:03:02

Like, it didn't have to look like this, because when you look at the

Jay Ray: 00:03:07

trajectory of Jay, and when you looked at the trajectory of, uh, Kareem, Dame

Jay Ray: 00:03:13

could have had a different trajectory of his career because there's clearly

Jay Ray: 00:03:20

something there that he has a talent for.

Jay Ray: 00:03:24

We're gonna talk about that a little bit later, 'cause I don't know that

Jay Ray: 00:03:28

we can always pinpoint it based on all of the foolishness around him.

Jay Ray: 00:03:32

So this could have been very different.

Jay Ray: 00:03:34

So it's, it's, it's, it's definitely a, a weird time.

Jay Ray: 00:03:38

But so we wanted to spend some time at the beginning of, of this show, y'all, just

Jay Ray: 00:03:42

kind of talking a bit about Dame Dash.

Jay Ray: 00:03:49

I wanna do a quick history of his career, and then Sir Daniel and I wanna reflect

Jay Ray: 00:03:56

on kind of what he represents, and just do some other kind of conversation.

Jay Ray: 00:04:02

But,

Sir Daniel: 00:04:03

This is a cautionary tale

Jay Ray: 00:04:05

this is a, this is a cautionary tale.

Jay Ray: 00:04:08

Um, and I think this starts at the beginning.

Jay Ray: 00:04:17

I made my notes on Dame Dash.

Jay Ray: 00:04:18

I wanted to make sure that I share.

Jay Ray: 00:04:20

We know him.

Jay Ray: 00:04:21

He's from Harlem.

Jay Ray: 00:04:23

Lifelong entrepreneur.

Jay Ray: 00:04:27

Hustler is the term that is most often applied to him, and I think that

Jay Ray: 00:04:34

colors how he- h- all the things that has happened to him at his highest

Jay Ray: 00:04:40

high and his lowest low, because I think there's, like, a, a plus and

Jay Ray: 00:04:44

a minus to that mentality, right?

Jay Ray: 00:04:46

But anyway, co-founder of Roc-A-Fella Records, co-founder of Rocawear.

Jay Ray: 00:04:51

Um, there's some other businesses in there, but those are the

Jay Ray: 00:04:54

two that we really know.

Jay Ray: 00:04:56

Um- Big thing with Dame is of course in the, the, the mid-'90s.

Jay Ray: 00:05:03

It's a famous tale of, it's '94, Jay-Z, uh, is trying to get signed.

Jay Ray: 00:05:12

Um, we first see JC- Jay-Z in the Jaz-O video for The Originators in 1990.

Jay Ray: 00:05:19

It's four years later, Jay-Z has grown up.

Jay Ray: 00:05:21

He's trying to get a deal.

Jay Ray: 00:05:23

He can't get a deal, so him and his boys decide they are gonna start a record

Jay Ray: 00:05:28

label because they are entrepreneurial, and that record label is Roc-A-Fella.

Jay Ray: 00:05:32

And of course, it becomes a major deal because of course, two years later,

Jay Ray: 00:05:37

Jay's Reasonable Doubt comes out, um, and really ushers us into the Jay-Z era.

Jay Ray: 00:05:43

That's why Jay had those, the show at Yankee Stadium.

Jay Ray: 00:05:46

He's celebrating 30 years of Jay-Z, um, and Reasonable Doubt.

Jay Ray: 00:05:52

So through that run

Jay Ray: 00:05:58

I will say this.

Jay Ray: 00:06:00

Early in Jay-Z's career, and I don't know if this is true for you, Sir Daniel, I

Jay Ray: 00:06:06

didn't really have a, a, a line on Dame.

Jay Ray: 00:06:10

Like, I wasn't re- he wasn't as visible of a character in the, the, the Roc-A-Fella,

Jay Ray: 00:06:18

the, the ex- uh, external facing world.

Jay Ray: 00:06:21

Definitely saw Jay.

Jay Ray: 00:06:22

You definitely saw, like, Amil.

Jay Ray: 00:06:24

Like, you saw the artists more.

Jay Ray: 00:06:28

But as Roc-A-Fella's, uh, uh, profile rised, Dame emerges as his

Jay Ray: 00:06:39

own character, and I say that very purposefully, in the Roc-A-Fella story.

Jay Ray: 00:06:46

Because I distinctly remember that Big Pimpin' video and Dame Dash and

Jay Ray: 00:06:52

the champagne bottles and all of that stuff, and I'm like, I never remembered

Jay Ray: 00:06:58

him as that guy be- you know, before.

Jay Ray: 00:07:01

And all of a sudden he's his own character in the rise of Roc-A-Fella.

Jay Ray: 00:07:08

Um, am I misremembering that?

Jay Ray: 00:07:10

Did you, did, was Dame, like, a big figure before then publicly?

Sir Daniel: 00:07:17

No, I think, no, I think you're on point.

Sir Daniel: 00:07:18

I do believe that Dame witnessed what it could mean to be second fiddle

Sir Daniel: 00:07:27

wing man to, next to the man who is the man.

Sir Daniel: 00:07:32

And he took a cue from, and took a page out of Diddy's, Diddy's playbook of being

Sir Daniel: 00:07:38

the the, the flashy one, the opulent one, the fly guy on the side who's,

Sir Daniel: 00:07:44

you know, who's not on the mic, but you know, but you know he's making moves.

Sir Daniel: 00:07:48

And so, and, and, you know, Har- being from Harlem, I do think if you listen

Sir Daniel: 00:07:53

to, if you talk to anybody who's from Harlem, especially that comes from the

Sir Daniel: 00:07:57

golden era, they'll tell you, you know, you know, "We from Harlem, we from Harlem,

Sir Daniel: 00:08:01

you know, we hustlers, we hustlers." And so that's their claim to fame is

Sir Daniel: 00:08:04

that we making moves, we're constantly making moves, and we, and we have a

Sir Daniel: 00:08:08

lot of mouth, and we have a lot of, uh, uh, you know, we talk a good game.

Sir Daniel: 00:08:12

And so I think you're absolutely right.

Sir Daniel: 00:08:15

Dame, um, adapted this persona of the, of the wing man, but the one making

Sir Daniel: 00:08:23

moves 'cause, you know, he had the brick phone and everything back in… He was

Sir Daniel: 00:08:26

always on the phone and doing things.

Sir Daniel: 00:08:29

And then of course, you know, when the sham- to your point, when the champagne

Sir Daniel: 00:08:32

started flowing, Dame also became known as the guy, the, the dice shaking, you

Sir Daniel: 00:08:37

know, dance guy, and that, you know, that became his claim to fame as well.

Sir Daniel: 00:08:42

What I did notice about him or what I always picked up, a, a energy is

Sir Daniel: 00:08:47

there was just something Not endearing, um, not, not endearing about him.

Sir Daniel: 00:08:54

There was no warm fuzzies, as much as a warm fuzzy you can get from

Sir Daniel: 00:09:01

a, a Harlem hustler, hardcore rap artist at, in the '90s coming up.

Sir Daniel: 00:09:06

You know, as much as you can do that.

Sir Daniel: 00:09:08

But there is… We all know that in this industry, in, um, in the recording arts

Sir Daniel: 00:09:15

and be- being a celebrity in the recording arts, is that there has to be, uh, there

Sir Daniel: 00:09:20

has to be a little bit of likability to you, especially if the, the, if the, the

Sir Daniel: 00:09:26

talent is not as, um, as overwhelming

Jay Ray: 00:09:32

Visible, apparent.

Sir Daniel: 00:09:33

as your, as your natural gravitas to people.

Sir Daniel: 00:09:36

If you don't have the, the gravitas, you g- your talent has to be, like,

Sir Daniel: 00:09:40

really over t- over the top and crazy, 'cause then people will be more likely

Sir Daniel: 00:09:44

to be like, "Well, he's not really cool, but not that nice of a person,

Sir Daniel: 00:09:47

but I can't, I can't deny his talent." And so yes, he, you know, jerk is the

Sir Daniel: 00:09:53

word that is always synonymous with Dame, and I think he leaned into that.

Sir Daniel: 00:09:59

He definitely leans into that persona, and what we see is that he, um, he takes on

Sir Daniel: 00:10:07

the persona of the bad guy of the group.

Sir Daniel: 00:10:11

I guess good… I don't know if you wanna use cop, good cop, bad cop, but, um, he

Sir Daniel: 00:10:17

definitely took on that persona of the bad guy of the crew, the one that's willing

Sir Daniel: 00:10:22

to do the dirty, you know, the d- to get

Jay Ray: 00:10:24

I'ma go into the, I'ma go into the label and I'ma make sure

Sir Daniel: 00:10:28

I'ma get my hands dirty and, you know, and make these

Sir Daniel: 00:10:31

moves 'cause I'm that dude and I'm, you know, I'm from Harlem.

Sir Daniel: 00:10:34

Did I mention I'm from Harlem?

Sir Daniel: 00:10:35

So, you know, so that's, so that's the, um, persona that Dame took on,

Sir Daniel: 00:10:41

and I guess you would consider that his, the villain arc that he he creates

Jay Ray: 00:10:46

he cre- he… Yeah, and, um, so I think what's interesting about this,

Jay Ray: 00:10:52

and I didn't think about this until I was doing the research, and I'm gonna…

Jay Ray: 00:10:55

When I say this to everybody, it's gonna be, like, mind-blowing in a second.

Jay Ray: 00:10:59

But yes, definitely loud energy, confrontational.

Jay Ray: 00:11:06

There are so many industry stories that have been told about Dame Dash going down

Jay Ray: 00:11:12

to Def Jam and just running amok, um, with the s- the people that work there.

Jay Ray: 00:11:18

You know what I'm saying?

Jay Ray: 00:11:19

And, and to that earlier point, if you are not the guy with the

Jay Ray: 00:11:28

talent, the discernible talent

Sir Daniel: 00:11:31

Exactly

Jay Ray: 00:11:33

And you're not likable, right?

Jay Ray: 00:11:37

So what, in the story that we've heard, and, and Jay has kind of,

Jay Ray: 00:11:41

uh, uh, hinted at this, I think he's outright said it a couple of times.

Jay Ray: 00:11:45

But Dame becomes a liability, right?

Jay Ray: 00:11:48

So when you're trying to rise to a certain level and you have someone who

Jay Ray: 00:11:53

is working with you who is antagonizing the people who are helping you to make

Jay Ray: 00:11:58

things happen, it becomes more difficult to move because they like, "I don't

Jay Ray: 00:12:03

mind working with you, I like you, but your boy is too much. He's too much."

Jay Ray: 00:12:08

So by the time Roc-A-Fella, and this is the thing that I think we have to

Jay Ray: 00:12:13

remember, Roc-A-Fella broke up in 2004.

Jay Ray: 00:12:21

So Jay comes out in, with Reasonable Doubt in '96 independently.

Jay Ray: 00:12:26

They're not affiliated with Def Jam yet.

Jay Ray: 00:12:29

That is a priority distributed, uh, uh, uh, record

Sir Daniel: 00:12:33

Mm-hmm.

Jay Ray: 00:12:36

That short amount of time later, so that's eight years later,

Jay Ray: 00:12:42

they are already dissolved, like selling Roc-A-Fella to, to Def Jam,

Jay Ray: 00:12:48

and the group is breaking up, right?

Jay Ray: 00:12:51

But for us, that's 22 years ago that this situation went down.

Jay Ray: 00:12:59

And we have watched Jay go on to do all kinds of other things

Jay Ray: 00:13:07

unrelated to his time at Roc-A-Fella, you know what I'm saying?

Jay Ray: 00:13:11

And to have Dame be in this situation where I feel like he is always stuck

Jay Ray: 00:13:21

in the same time f- frame of life, um, is unfortunate, and it, it calls into

Jay Ray: 00:13:30

question, so a question that we have.

Jay Ray: 00:13:34

Like, what does he represent in hip hop?

Jay Ray: 00:13:38

Uh, or in Black culture?

Jay Ray: 00:13:39

Like, um, what do, y- what do you think, Sir Daniel?

Sir Daniel: 00:13:45

I think it's sad, but I do think that Dame kind of brings a

Sir Daniel: 00:13:52

seediness to the game, to hip-hop.

Sir Daniel: 00:13:57

There's not a whole lot of positive… And I, and the thing, and, and the

Sir Daniel: 00:14:01

sad part is, and that I'm sure that he has sat at the table and has brought,

Sir Daniel: 00:14:07

you know, many major deals or many major players to the arena of hip-hop.

Sir Daniel: 00:14:13

Um, but one could argue that those outliers have been invited in and

Sir Daniel: 00:14:21

kind of des- are destroying or have destroyed the art from the inside.

Sir Daniel: 00:14:27

Um, but also, you know, he is a part of, he's a part of history.

Jay Ray: 00:14:33

Oh, no doubt

Sir Daniel: 00:14:34

he's a part, he's definitely a part of that, that chunk of history.

Sir Daniel: 00:14:39

You know, Jay O talks about he, you know, he, he had us, had us, um, gave us

Sir Daniel: 00:14:43

anthems for seven summers, for 10 summers.

Sir Daniel: 00:14:45

You know, and it's true.

Sir Daniel: 00:14:47

It is very, it's very much true.

Sir Daniel: 00:14:49

However, at the same time, you know, this gentleman that he has

Sir Daniel: 00:14:53

been associated with cannot, just does not have the best reputation.

Sir Daniel: 00:14:59

You know what I also find interesting?

Sir Daniel: 00:15:01

I'm glad, um, Knots message mentioned the Streets Is Watching video.

Sir Daniel: 00:15:06

Every rhyme that I hear Jay talk about people, um, about the

Sir Daniel: 00:15:14

protagonist of his rhyme, right?

Sir Daniel: 00:15:17

It's always having to watch his back against somebody

Sir Daniel: 00:15:20

that's directly in his crew.

Sir Daniel: 00:15:23

And the whole time I'm thinking to myself, well, that's him.

Jay Ray: 00:15:28

Yes.

Sir Daniel: 00:15:29

That's who you're talking.

Sir Daniel: 00:15:29

So, oh, so this whole time you've been talking about Dame, and I wonder, does

Sir Daniel: 00:15:33

Dame know that you've been talking about him the whole time in all these records

Sir Daniel: 00:15:37

like Streets Is Watching and, you know, Friend or Foe, all of those records.

Sir Daniel: 00:15:41

You know you're describing Dame, and it's ki- and now in the, in

Sir Daniel: 00:15:45

hindsight now we're like, oh, oh

Jay Ray: 00:15:48

We can see it, but also Dame is one of those personalities,

Jay Ray: 00:15:53

he doesn't strike me as being particularly self-aware.

Jay Ray: 00:15:56

Because if he was, some of the things that are happening now wouldn't happen.

Jay Ray: 00:16:01

You know what I'm saying?

Jay Ray: 00:16:03

We mentioned Diddy earlier, and I just wanna underscore this really quick.

Jay Ray: 00:16:10

I do think in, uh, in, in, in Dame's, uh, psyche, he saw himself as that.

Jay Ray: 00:16:20

And Diddy and Dame are completely different.

Jay Ray: 00:16:23

You know what I'm saying?

Jay Ray: 00:16:24

Di- Diddy has a discernible talent that we could identify and we could see and

Jay Ray: 00:16:29

we could, like, put our hands around.

Jay Ray: 00:16:33

And also, up until all of the foolishness that's happened around

Jay Ray: 00:16:36

him recently, he also had a lot of goodwill with other people at the time.

Jay Ray: 00:16:45

I've never heard that about Dame.

Jay Ray: 00:16:46

Yeah, he represented

Sir Daniel: 00:16:48

fun.

Sir Daniel: 00:16:48

He absolutely represented fun.

Jay Ray: 00:16:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jay Ray: 00:16:51

So okay, one of the conversations that we had, I don't know how

Jay Ray: 00:16:54

we're gonna get into this tonight.

Jay Ray: 00:16:56

We should hear our meetings.

Jay Ray: 00:16:57

We go, we go, we go straight for it in our meetings.

Jay Ray: 00:17:01

But was trying to figure out, like, what type of organism is

Jay Ray: 00:17:07

like a Dame Dash in this universe?

Jay Ray: 00:17:09

You know what I'm saying?

Jay Ray: 00:17:10

Like

Sir Daniel: 00:17:12

Well,

Jay Ray: 00:17:13

and I think we did land it.

Jay Ray: 00:17:15

I think this is right.

Jay Ray: 00:17:17

You know, go ahead, go ahead.

Jay Ray: 00:17:19

Y- go ahead.

Jay Ray: 00:17:20

And then

Sir Daniel: 00:17:20

it just came to me.

Sir Daniel: 00:17:24

I know y'all have seen those, um, if you've ever watched National Geographic,

Sir Daniel: 00:17:28

if you've any- watched any kind of nature show, and you've seen any of those shows

Sir Daniel: 00:17:33

about, um, the predators of the sea.

Sir Daniel: 00:17:36

Jay-Z is definitely a shark.

Sir Daniel: 00:17:38

Dame Dash is what they call the remora fish, or what is

Sir Daniel: 00:17:46

commonly known as the suckerfish.

Sir Daniel: 00:17:50

This is that organism, that fish that attaches themself to the

Sir Daniel: 00:17:56

apex predator of the ocean, and they float along, and they, um,

Sir Daniel: 00:18:02

Get rid of the parasites that are around him.

Sir Daniel: 00:18:04

They keep the parasites away, like, "Hey, this is my man.

Sir Daniel: 00:18:07

Get away.

Sir Daniel: 00:18:07

Nah, you not fly.

Sir Daniel: 00:18:08

You not… Get away from here." You know, and they, they, they eat

Sir Daniel: 00:18:11

when they, they eat when the, the shark eats, and they're just around.

Sir Daniel: 00:18:16

And so they get a reputation like the shark, like, "Oh, well you roll with

Sir Daniel: 00:18:19

the shark, so you must be, you must be that dude." So, you know, again,

Sir Daniel: 00:18:25

we don't know this man personally.

Sir Daniel: 00:18:28

However, I just get the vision of him being a hanger-on, and not even so

Sir Daniel: 00:18:36

much hanging on just to be hanging on.

Sir Daniel: 00:18:39

Yes, he brought something to… He definitely had, had to have brought

Sir Daniel: 00:18:43

something to the team and to the, um, to the legacy of Roc-A-Fella and to the

Sir Daniel: 00:18:49

roster of Roc-A-Fella, uh, you know, getting people on board and whatnot.

Sir Daniel: 00:18:53

But it is that thing where I think he realized that he is not in this,

Sir Daniel: 00:19:01

in this arena, everybody is always going to pay attention to the star.

Sir Daniel: 00:19:09

And a- and he may not ever admit it, but there has to be a part of him

Sir Daniel: 00:19:15

that felt, feels like he is a star.

Sir Daniel: 00:19:18

All he'll-- Like, dudes from Harlem think they are the main character, and

Sir Daniel: 00:19:23

he c- he clearly has, um, a, a severe case of main character d- disease.

Jay Ray: 00:19:29

Oh my God.

Jay Ray: 00:19:30

I, I mean, no notes.

Jay Ray: 00:19:33

I think you are… When Sir Daniel said that in our meeting,

Jay Ray: 00:19:39

I was like, "Yeah, that makes sense." 'Cause let's… Go ahead

Sir Daniel: 00:19:43

C- c- okay, I'm sorry.

Sir Daniel: 00:19:44

I don't mean to cut you off 'cause like, okay, let's even take Jay out of the,

Sir Daniel: 00:19:48

the

Jay Ray: 00:19:48

Let's talk about who he d- let's talk about the people that was on his arm

Sir Daniel: 00:19:52

He was always… Okay, so after, you know, him, he was at arm in

Sir Daniel: 00:19:56

arm with Jay, then after that kind of fell apart, who did he's arm in arm with?

Sir Daniel: 00:20:02

Aaliyah.

Sir Daniel: 00:20:03

And I mean, he rode that until she passed away.

Sir Daniel: 00:20:07

He rode that relationship until he passed away because Aaliyah gave him, um, made

Sir Daniel: 00:20:13

him g- it polished his image, made him, it made him, softened him up, made him,

Sir Daniel: 00:20:19

h- uh, human, e- dare I say even likable because if Aaliyah likes him, then there's

Sir Daniel: 00:20:25

gotta be something likable about him.

Sir Daniel: 00:20:28

And so he rode that relationship until unfortunately she passed away in that,

Sir Daniel: 00:20:32

well, she died in that plane crash.

Sir Daniel: 00:20:34

And then he shortly after that married Rachel Roy, who

Sir Daniel: 00:20:38

was a up-and-coming designer.

Sir Daniel: 00:20:40

And she, you know, he's, he's breaking into fashion.

Sir Daniel: 00:20:45

Here she is, a rising star in fashion, and not just in urban fashion.

Sir Daniel: 00:20:51

Mama is in major department stores, and she's got all these connections.

Sir Daniel: 00:20:55

She's the, she's the, the arch- archetype of that girl that is

Sir Daniel: 00:21:01

a part of the fashion industry.

Sir Daniel: 00:21:03

And so he aligns himself with her.

Sir Daniel: 00:21:05

And then along comes this, um, this genius from Chicago, you know, named

Sir Daniel: 00:21:11

Kanye, you know, that who's taking the world by storm, and, you know, all he

Sir Daniel: 00:21:17

ever wanted was a Roc-A-Fella chain.

Sir Daniel: 00:21:19

And this was the moment that did it for me, Jay.

Sir Daniel: 00:21:24

When Kanye is performing, he's, you know, he's performing through the wire

Sir Daniel: 00:21:28

and, and getting his life, and this is w- a very important performance.

Sir Daniel: 00:21:34

Here comes Dame in the middle of the performance to chain him, to

Sir Daniel: 00:21:39

give him his Roc-A-Fella chain.

Sir Daniel: 00:21:41

And it's like, "I'm not gonna make this about me, but it's also about me

Sir Daniel: 00:21:46

'cause I've got the chain, and I wanna chain you, and we gonna throw up our

Sir Daniel: 00:21:49

diamonds, and I'm standing next to you."

Sir Daniel: 00:21:51

And it reminds me, to bring it to the, to bring it to the present, do y'all remember

Sir Daniel: 00:21:56

when Cardi B won her first Grammy, and she was, and she was married to, um, Offset?

Sir Daniel: 00:22:05

While this woman is going up to get her first Grammy that she earned

Sir Daniel: 00:22:09

on her own, this man took it upon himself to run up there with her.

Sir Daniel: 00:22:12

It was kinda that moment.

Sir Daniel: 00:22:14

It was that kinda moment, and it's very indicative of Da- the persona

Sir Daniel: 00:22:20

that Dame Dash has, or, and he probably would never admit to it, but this is

Sir Daniel: 00:22:25

what I'm getting at from, from what he's shown us from over the years

Jay Ray: 00:22:31

Absolutely, and I'm glad you mentioned Ye because I actually think

Jay Ray: 00:22:38

that Dame is closer in, closer in, in, in personality to Ye than he is to Jay,

Jay Ray: 00:22:48

but he just don't have Ye's talent.

Jay Ray: 00:22:51

If he had a, a, a thimble of that talent, he would be something to deal

Jay Ray: 00:22:57

with, but I think that's the big thing.

Jay Ray: 00:23:00

I think he's actually closer to that.

Jay Ray: 00:23:02

So I think at the end of the day… So we're now sitting here today

Jay Ray: 00:23:11

Watching this man, watching people put microphones in his face, 'cause

Jay Ray: 00:23:14

apparently he'll do any podcast.

Jay Ray: 00:23:16

If we asked him to come on, he would probably come on.

Jay Ray: 00:23:19

We don't want him on the show.

Jay Ray: 00:23:21

You know?

Jay Ray: 00:23:21

oh

Jay Ray: 00:23:21

' Sir Daniel: he wouldn't cause, 'cause we're not, we're not real

Jay Ray: 00:23:23

men because we're talking about him.

Jay Ray: 00:23:25

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jay Ray: 00:23:26

That's right.

Jay Ray: 00:23:26

That's right.

Jay Ray: 00:23:27

He does need us to be… Oh, he would come on just to cuss us out.

Jay Ray: 00:23:30

"So can I finish? Can I finish?"

Sir Daniel: 00:23:33

Pause.

Jay Ray: 00:23:33

So unfortunately, we are sitting in this moment where people

Jay Ray: 00:23:38

are shoving a microphone in front of this man's face to respond to things

Jay Ray: 00:23:42

that he has nothing particularly important to say about this stuff, and

Jay Ray: 00:23:50

it didn't have to go down like this.

Jay Ray: 00:23:53

He coulda had a different trajectory

Jay Ray: 00:23:56

if he was different.

Jay Ray: 00:23:58

But the, the, the, the career of Dame Dash, um, is

Jay Ray: 00:24:05

unfortunately stuck in Roc-A-Fella

Sir Daniel: 00:24:10

In Roc-A-Fella mode.

Sir Daniel: 00:24:12

I don't know.

Sir Daniel: 00:24:13

It, it's really, it's unfortunate, but, um, yeah, you just… I don't know.

Sir Daniel: 00:24:19

The, we said at the beginning that this is a cautionary tale, tale

Jay Ray: 00:24:23

Mm-hmm.

Sir Daniel: 00:24:23

that you just don't wanna be a Dame Dash.

Sir Daniel: 00:24:34

There's a, a creator, um, @homem… I think he's, he's a fashion, uh, content

Sir Daniel: 00:24:42

creator, and he was talking, he, he said, "Be careful of the real friend who

Sir Daniel: 00:24:49

always keeps it real." And the crux of what he was saying is that be careful of

Sir Daniel: 00:24:55

those people in your life that are always jabbing and s- and, and they're taking

Sir Daniel: 00:25:04

their jabs at you, but they're c- they're disguising it as constructive criticism

Jay Ray: 00:25:09

looking out for you.

Jay Ray: 00:25:10

Yeah,

Sir Daniel: 00:25:11

Exactly.

Sir Daniel: 00:25:11

And constructive criticism and love.

Sir Daniel: 00:25:14

And I think a lot of us, um, have encountered or, or may be

Sir Daniel: 00:25:20

encountering those people in our lives now and just don't know it.

Sir Daniel: 00:25:25

And we just thought it was a very, very interesting way to look at this,

Sir Daniel: 00:25:31

um, this situation because there is no reason for him to be propped up on

Sir Daniel: 00:25:38

somebody's camera to talk o- to, to continue to talk about this man and

Sir Daniel: 00:25:43

offer criticisms that nobody asked for.

Sir Daniel: 00:25:46

I think Jay is doing a good enough job of digging holes for himself

Sir Daniel: 00:25:52

on his own.

Sir Daniel: 00:25:53

He does not need you to point out his flaws and to take digs because the sad

Sir Daniel: 00:25:59

part is that you might be making some good points, but nobody's gonna pay

Sir Daniel: 00:26:04

attention to what you're saying because the first thing they're gonna say is,

Sir Daniel: 00:26:07

"Oh, We're not paying attention to him…

Sir Daniel: 00:26:09

He's a, he's a A-one hater.

Sir Daniel: 00:26:11

He, a- and it's actually qui- kind of sad.

Sir Daniel: 00:26:13

He has become a punchline.

Sir Daniel: 00:26:15

Um, he has become, whether he wants to believe it or not, they're making fun of

Sir Daniel: 00:26:20

him, like him trying to recreate his, his dice dance and, you know, doing it much

Jay Ray: 00:26:26

on the mic, he's doing a dis, he's doing a diss

Sir Daniel: 00:26:28

Yeah.

Sir Daniel: 00:26:29

Like, dude,

Jay Ray: 00:26:30

and

Sir Daniel: 00:26:31

nah, that's not, that's not P, as the young people will say.

Sir Daniel: 00:26:35

That's not, that's not your, that's not very Harlem-like.

Sir Daniel: 00:26:38

Don't do that.

Sir Daniel: 00:26:39

Don't do this to your, um, to what's left of your legacy, Dame Dash.

Sir Daniel: 00:26:42

Don't do that.

Jay Ray: 00:26:43

Y'all, y'all are so amazing.

Jay Ray: 00:26:46

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Jay Ray: 00:26:50

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Jay Ray: 00:26:52

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Jay Ray: 00:26:55

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Jay Ray: 00:26:59

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Jay Ray: 00:27:01

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Jay Ray: 00:27:03

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Jay Ray: 00:27:06

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Jay Ray: 00:27:12

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Jay Ray: 00:27:15

And last but not least, check us out on Substack, where we

Jay Ray: 00:27:19

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Jay Ray: 00:27:20

That's our newsletter.

Jay Ray: 00:27:22

So if you like, "I wanna get Queue Points in my email," you can get

Jay Ray: 00:27:25

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Jay Ray: 00:27:27

Um, and we not only do Queue Points, we also do music news

Jay Ray: 00:27:30

and all kinds of other stuff.

Jay Ray: 00:27:31

But we appreciate y'all, and we love y'all.

Sir Daniel: 00:27:34

Well, listen, like Jay Ray said, we appreciate you, we

Sir Daniel: 00:27:36

love you, and like I say every week, in this life, you have a choice.

Sir Daniel: 00:27:39

You can either pick up the needle or you can let the record play.

Sir Daniel: 00:27:42

I am DJ Sir Daniel

Jay Ray: 00:27:44

And my name is Jay Ray y'all.

Sir Daniel: 00:27:46

And this has been Queue Points podcast, dropping

Sir Daniel: 00:27:49

the needle on Black music history.

Sir Daniel: 00:27:52

We will see you on the next go round.

Jay Ray: 00:27:55

Peace, y'all.