Word: roc
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Dash's new business plan fits him like a Roc-A-Fella hoodie. This fall he started Roc Music, the first hip-hop company to produce rock, alternative and R. and B. He's flipping the turntables: over the past decade, pundits have lauded rap for "going mainstream" and finding suburban skater punks far from the smoked-out city neighborhoods where the music was founded. With Roc Music, Damon Dash is formally inviting rock into the hip-hop world. "I've had 20 albums go gold or platinum," he says. "Why can't I have that in rock, soul...
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...
Prissy pop acts like Britney Spears and 98º are on today's syllabus. Dash wants his people to know that although Roc-A-Fella will move beyond hip-hop, the company won't lose any edge. "This pop-music thing, it's starting to bother me," he begins. "Everything that's hot, it's going pop. What sells now is this bulls___." His cell phone interrupts. Dash spends 10 minutes jousting with a colleague. "It's not my fault that your company owes me $85,000," he says. Dash flicks the phone shut and continues. "We have to come...
...covers his left biceps. Two years ago, tragedy struck again when his fiance, the singer Aaliyah, died in a Bahamas plane crash. Dash shocked co-workers when he strutted through the office only a week after Aaliyah's death. "Once I realized how many people depend on me at Roc-A-Fella, I knew I had to recover," he says...