Word: jayed
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...York City studios, where Dash and his Roc-A-Fella crew put on a weekly talk show to plug his rap, clothing and film empire. Slouched in his leather seat, Dash grabs control of the CD remote and makes a selection. It isn't Roc-A-Fella superstar Jay-Z, with whom Dash launched the company from his Harlem apartment eight years ago, or even Dirt McGirt, a.k.a. Ol' Dirty Bastard, another player on the Roc-A-Fella roster. Dash listens to a fiddle and starts to bop his head; he has settled on the 1980s cult hit Come...
...Fella first bounced into Dash's mind when, at age 19, he went to a birthday party for rapper Heavy D at a cousin's Manhattan nightclub. The money and beautiful women hooked him. Two years later, a local DJ introduced Dash to Brooklyn rapper Shawn (Jay-Z) Carter. They teamed up, and Dash took Jay-Z on the road, but record labels weren't interested. Frustrated, Dash kept hustling Jay-Z at clubs in order to raise the money to start his own label, named in homage to the oil barons. He eventually persuaded Priority Records to distribute Jay...
Given the condition of the music industry, Roc Music's timing isn't ideal. Web piracy has helped cause a 14% drop in record sales since 1999. In mid-November, Dash's biggest star, Jay-Z, released what he says will be his final record, The Black Album. It topped the charts in one week, but if Jay-Z, just 33, doesn't pull a Michael Jordan and lay tracks once or twice more, "the Roc" could lose some cachet. "Damon's done a great job, but he's clearly been in the right place at the right time...
Dash hears the whispers. "People are contemplating our demise," Dash tells some dozen Roc-A-Fella staff members gathered in his Broadway office. "With Jay retiring, now more than ever we are going to be critiqued on every level." Dash doesn't just moderate a meeting. Sitting at his desk, two black greyhound statues flanking him, Dash cups his hands and lectures...
Aboard a private Gulfstream jet to Ronson's Pull My Hair Out video shoot in Los Angeles, Dash brushes aside the skeptics. "With Jay done, we have to take some chances, try new things," he says. His entourage surrounds him. The head of his film business peruses a script (she recommends that Dash take a pass). A marketing guy is reading Mao in the Boardroom, while two others flip through a branding book. Dash punches at his BlackBerry. "This is the smallest jet we'll ever be on," he says. True--if Roc-A-Fella sails through the rough weather...