Dame Dash’s Stake In Roc-A-Fella Records To Be Auctioned Off By Feds

Dame Dash is being forced to sell his entire stake in Roc-a-Fella Records to settle a substantial debt.

According to a report from TMZ on Thursday, August 1, the United States Marshals Service will auction off Dash’s 33.3 percent interest in the company to pay off a $823,000 judgment made against him two years ago. The judgment stemmed from a lawsuit filed by film director Josh Webber, who produced Dear Frank with Muddy Water Pictures in 2019. Webber sued Dash for copyright infringement and defamation after Dash claimed he still owned the rights to the film despite being removed from the project.

Dash’s stake in Roc-a-Fella Records includes its primary asset — the rights to JAY-Z’s debut album Reasonable Doubt. As noted by Billboard, the rest of the catalog released through the legendary label is owned by other entities and will not be part of the sale. The auction is scheduled to be held at a hotel in Midtown Manhattan on August 29. Prospective bidders must register with Webber’s attorney, Christopher Brown. They must also be prepared to bid no less than $1.2 million and provide a deposit of 20 percent of the minimum bid, which is $240,000.

Roc-a-Fella Records’ other two co-founders, JAY-Z and Kareem “Biggs” Burke, made efforts to halt the auction. They even updated their company’s bylaws and reportedly attempted to get involved in the lawsuit. However, a federal judge ruled against their efforts in February. Even if someone does buy Dash’s stake, they will only be a minority owner.

A source told Billboard that whoever buys Dash’s stake will be a minority owner without decision-making authority. They won’t have the ability to sell the copyright or borrow against the master as all decisions require a majority vote.

The source added that there’s an expiration date on the master ownership for the company, meaning the revenue and the asset itself won’t last many more years.

There is still a possibility that the company’s two remaining owners could purchase the rights themselves, though there’s no confirmation that JAY-Z and Biggs have plans to do so.

You may be asking yourself, Dame Dash is a rich man, surely he can come up with the money to pay this suit.

What happened to Damon Dash’s net worth?

How did Damon Dash lose his wealth? Damon Dash was one of the richest music artists at the height of his career, with a net worth of more than $60 million. He has almost lost all of his wealth due to poor investments and a costly divorce. Damon Dash once had 25 luxury cars to his name,

Damon Dash once had 25 luxury cars to his name, but now he only has one. In 2019, he was arrested for owing more than $400,000 in child support to two women. He was released after paying more than $1 million in total to clear his debts.

Damon Dash was married to Rachel Roy from 2005 to 2015. They have two daughters together. The couple’s divorce was contentious, and they traded barbs in public on several occasions.

Roy accused Dash of being a deadbeat dad and of being abusive during their marriage. According to court documents, Dash will pay Roy a $10 million lump sum, $500,000 per year in alimony.

He had to give up half of his real estate holdings, including a $10 million mansion in New Jersey and a $5 million townhouse in Manhattan.

I’ll let you be the judge of why he didn’t pay.

But there’s more, that will help you see the light.

According to Billboard:

The filmmaker isn’t the only one seeking the money from Dash’s Roc-A-Fella stake. The New York City Department of Social Services (NYCDSS) will actually have first dibs, according to court documents, since Dash owes a total of $145,096 in unpaid child support to a woman named Rachel Roy for his two daughters and to a woman named Cindy Morales for his son.

Brown is also seeking to collect another $155,000 that Dash owes to him and another client, photographer Monique Bunn, from separate legal actions. But they’ve agreed that NYCDSS and Webber deserve to recoup their debts from Dash first.

If any money from the auction is left over, it will go to Dash himself. His attorney, Natraj Bhushan, tells Billboard that he and his client will be at the Aug 29 event and “expect a robust auction with bids entering the several millions if not higher.”

Back in 2021, attorneys for Jay-Z and Roc-A-Fella sued Dash after news broke that he was planning to auction off a stake in Reasonable Doubt as a non-fungible token (NFT). They argued that the company, not Dash himself, owned the rights to the album: “The bottom line is simple: Dash can’t sell what he doesn’t own.” A year later, Dash signed a settlement in which he agreed that he had no right to sell any part of Jay-Z’s album — as an NFT or otherwise.

Personally, I’m knowing that Jay Z will show up and buy the stake. But it seems he could’ve bought it for a few million and Dame paid off hid judgement without having to go to auction.