Dame Dash has promptly hit back at Steve Stoute after the music manager criticized him for how Roc-A-Fella Records fell apart.
Talking to Shannon Sharpe on the former NFL star’s Club Shay Shay podcast on Wednesday (March 6), Stoute said Dash “blew it” when it came to handling JAY-Z and the once-successful label the two founded alongside Kareem “Biggs” Burke.
Stoute, who is best known for being Nas‘ former manager, said he couldn’t believe that Dash and Roc-A-Fella imploded when they had “the most important artist of his generation,” meaning JAY-Z.
“The people around him wanted to meet with other people. People were becoming less beholden to him but he was unaware of it,” he said. “And then while he was building businesses, he would go off all around the world with cameras and girls and all kinds of crazy shit, and then come back flipping on everybody as if [they were wrong].”
He added: “Jay grew up, Jay wanted more. I think Jay saw Dame’s ceiling and I think that’s really what it was. He wanted more. Everybody wanted more. Dame just had a very particular way of approaching things.
“He’s far from stupid — very, very smart, very talented. Ego through the roof. So there was no working with him. No one wanted to work with him. Jimmy Iovine had this line: when the shit gets bigger than the cat, you gotta get rid of the cat.”
Dash promptly hit back at Stoute’s comments on Instagram, writing: “This is the reason I had to smack the shit out of @stevestoute a couple years ago…because he’s always speaking on other men’s business good thing I’ve evolved.”
Dame Dash previously claimed to have attacked Steve Stoute over a debt, telling The Combat Jack Show in 2014: “I had been playing basketball in the Hamptons and had broke my foot … I was like, ‘By the way, you owe me $18,000.’
“He was like, ‘I’m not paying you.’ So I limped over and said, ‘Yo, I think you need to get out of my office’ — and I’m not condoning this, I’m not proud of it — but I smacked the shit out of him.”
Dash also went off on Stoute in a 2014 interview with Hip Hop Motivation, labeling the veteran executive a culture vulture.
He said: “You know how many black people I tried to put together to make movies? There always be that one group — or because of Steve Stoute or somebody that’s a ‘culture robber’ or doesn’t care about his culture — [that] would break that up.
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“A guy like Steve Stoute would always take the people that are protecting the creative [and] eliminate them so he could rob the creative. Just so he could get his money. Even if he kills that black man or that person’s brand.”
The Harlem-bred mogul later issued a backhanded apology to Stoute as well as a number of other figures in Hip Hop.
“So JAY-Z, if I’ve offended you, I apologize. Lyor Cohen, if I offended you, I apologize. Steve Stoute, if I offended you, I apologize,” he said in a video posted to Instagram.
“Just ’cause you don’t have the same morals and principles, it’s cool. I’m not angry no more. I did what I had to do. I was a little aggravated about Aaliyah, so y’all just caught the brunt end of it. It was therapy.”
Stoute has yet to respond to Dame’s latest comments.
