Living The Red Life - The Genius Behind Roc-A-Fella Records : Entertainment Mogul Dame Dash

Episode Date: April 8, 2024

In this episode I got the chance to sit down with the legend himself Dame Dash, a trailblazer in the hip-hop industry, to share insights from his remarkable journey as an entrepreneur. Dame reflects on his transition from a teenage drug dealer to a music manager, highlighting the pivotal moments that led him to co-found Rockefeller Records and nurture talents like Jay Z and Kanye West. He emphasizes the importance of independence and integrity in business, recounting his experiences of breaking away from traditional models to forge his own path, which ultimately led to diverse ventures in fashion, television, and music.Dame delves into his current endeavors, including initiatives in education and politics, demonstrating his ongoing commitment to making a positive impact. He shares valuable entrepreneurial advice, emphasizing the necessity of resilience, confidence, and the willingness to pivot in the face of challenges. Through candid reflections on his successes and struggles, Dame Dash offers invaluable insights into the mindset and strategies that have propelled him forward on his entrepreneurial journey, inspiring aspiring entrepreneurs to pursue their dreams with determination and authenticity.CHAPTERS1:04 - From Hustler to Entrepreneur: Dame Dash's Journey2:19 - Breaking into Music: Jay Z and Rockefeller3:30 - The Middleman's Dilemma: Independence and Integrity5:38 - Collaborations and Discoveries: Kanye, Jay Z, and Kevin Hart6:39 - Diverse Ventures: Fashion, Television, and Music8:39 - Lessons Learned: Reflections from a Young Entrepreneur9:31 - Impacting Education and Politics: A New Frontier11:41 - The Future of Business: Vision and Innovation14:00 - Entrepreneurial Advice: Navigating Challenges and Pivots14:41 - Embracing Rejection: Fuel for Greatness15:57 - Confidence and Belief: Keys to Entrepreneurial Success17:26 - Working with Powerful Figures: Integrity and Consistency20:41 - Building from the Ground Up: Challenges and Wins22:17 - Managing Finances: Making and Keeping MoneyConnect with Rudy Mawer:LinkedInInstagramFacebookTwitter Connect with Dame Dash:IG - duskopoppingtonTIKTOK - Duskopoppingtonhttps://www.americanunetwork.com/

Your dreams have to be so big that no one else sees them. If people could see them, they would have did it. So it's a good thing. And you have to be prepared to do it yourself. Never base your bills on your best year. Oh yes, that's true. I started to learn how American wealth is actually built. It's all built with government contracts.

I have so many different ideas that I have to do it without raising a dollar. I do it on my own. Once I create something, then either i figure out how to scale which is where i'm at now or i gotta go raise some money for growth and until that happens you're broke you know i call it broke because i ain't looking at no money and day to day you gotta keep the lights on don't ever let somebody get something on you to where they can control all money's not good money you have have to be consistent. You got to live your brand every day, you know, and just don't conform to other people's bad ways of doing business. That's always the test. Your only test is based on your faith and faith comes with

time. So you have to go through some bad to appreciate the good. It's just a lesson. Just breathe easy and be cool. Always be cool. My name is Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast, and I'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the red life, ditch the blue pill, take the red pill, join me in Wonderland and change your life. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Living the Red Life. Very special session today. We have Dame Dash in the house. If you don't know who Dame Dash is, well, he was one of the first in the hip hop rap industry, very disruptive. He helped Jay-Z break into hip hop. He was the founder or co-founder of Rockefeller. Now he's the CEO of Made by Dame Dash. He has a clothing line and he's got a wealth of experience as an entrepreneur, literally starting at 19, right?

He's organized massive tours for Jay-Z, helped Kanye get his start, Kevin Hart. The list goes on. But yes, I'm excited. So, Dane, welcome to the show. Nice to be here. I appreciate your having me, Paul. So, I would love just to kick off the show. If someone doesn't, you know, kind of know your track record and everything you're doing and have done and you're up to now, could I get a kind of minute or two just kind of

to recap for the audience what your kind of life history around business has been? I know you've done a lot. When I was a teenager, I was a drug dealer, and I didn't find that it was sustainable. But what I learned about was branding and being consistent and having people working for me and all those things. But I was doing them, you know, one of the constraints of the recourse of failing was jail or death.

And, you know, it was illegal and hurting my culture. So at a very early age, I realized that it wasn't sustainable. And because of certain things that have happened in that moment of me being a teenager, which I've made movies about, like Paid and Fool, kids getting kidnapped and tortured, I pivoted and I went the route of music. So at 19 years old, I became a manager and, you know, long story short,

got a record deal with Clark Kent for Atlantic Records, and what I learned was, depending on them, would also not be sustainable. And, you know, I collectively started managing a lot of artists, one of them being Jay-Z. And, you know, we just decided at some point, after shopping him to a lot of different labels and me having

a record deal with two different artists Original Flavor and The Future Sound that we should just do it ourselves and you know me him and Biggs we just collectively put the records out,

did it ourselves. And that entailed touring and making merch and going and running up into radio stations because that's what was popping back then. And I had wild success with Rockefellerfeller and then rockware which was the clothing and then the movies and you know touring and you know looking for other businesses and you know that classic tale of you know once you don't need the middleman you you get rid of them. And Paul, for me being the connection to a lot of talent, I was the middleman. Once they didn't need me anymore, I felt they did things that I wouldn't do. And I just decided to do things completely independently and only do what made me happy, do it the right way, and only work with the people I wanted to

work with, which meant not raising money and really flipping. And also in the mix of that, what people don't understand is having money and holding money, earning millions of dollars is a business within itself yes so if you don't know what taxes to pay when to pay taxes how to pay taxes if people that you pay don't do right by you and there's no recourse for them you become accountable so you also like i found that i ended up owing like 18 million dollars in taxes even though i've been paying barry farbert um over a quarter million dollars a year and the thing about when you have a lot of money you don't notice when people are dipping and doing things until shit slows down. Yep.

And then also, you know, once your money gets funny, that's when your wife wants to divorce you. But they establish your child support based on the best year of your life. Yeah. Stuff with the same child support for the next 20 fucking years no matter how much money you make and the only way to get the child support reduced based on the money you make it is to go to court and get naked and who feels like doing that so being an entrepreneur is a challenge but life is a challenge and i'd rather have this challenge

than getting up every day when someone else tells me to do something for something that i don't want and have to deal with weird people yeah so i know another one is the people you've worked with right you've worked with the biggest celebrities artists actors um and been partners with many of them who are some of the people that uh you know you've collabed with over the years you know panye put him out pause jay-z everybody put kevin hart directed discovered kevin hart and now i decided you know tried to sell electric cars and i decided that i wanted to do a television. Oh, started Rachel Roy, big fashion brand. That's a tragic story within itself, and even though it's great.

And now I started my own television network. In any business I'm in, the first time I do it, I never succeed. Like the first record deal I had, it took me years to figure it out. I opened up galleries Like the first record deal I had, you know, it took me years just to figure it out. You know, I opened up galleries around the world as well. DD172 and all this. I should Google it.

But the first thing I did was creative control. And those are the cats that put out the Kanye doc. That was my first television network. My second television network was Dame Dash Studios, which was a subscription. And that doesn't work for anybody. And this next wave is American New, which is programmatic, understanding the benefit of getting the full CPMs and the data. You know, ad stacks, waterfalls, all that type of talk. Also becoming a director and actually directing the majority of the content that's on there.

Also, rock star, put the black keys on in rock and roll, did this project Black Rock. And I decided I made an album with my own rock band, the Black Guns and Freeway. We just have an album we're about to put out. And my music division is called blue rock records it's uh yeah kind of a wild ride i think there's a few things i would love to unpack there um like i think the first one that i always admire with entrepreneurs and people like yourself is uh you see a gap right or an opportunity and then you kind of come in and fill it and that's kind of how it all started you realize you could you know do this yourself manage it better and that kind of created that

that first big thing for you and then every time you know these later businesses and all the stuff that you're up to now and everything in between um you know i'm sure a lot of it's come come out of you know finding a gap in the marketplace, right? Or something you're passionate about, something you feel you could do better. So it's about turning something that I would do for free into something that can make me a lot of money without compromise because I'm a rock star in the super year. Good. I love that. I love that. And what were some of the, I would love to, you know, talk about some of the lessons, you know, really kind of growing those first few brands that if you could go back in time, 20, 30 years and teach yourself, what would they be? Yeah, I remember I was 19 years old and everything I did worked. So I don't think I'd change a thing, you know, you know you know hiring honest people which is almost

impossible at 19 years old to know like you know everything's a learning experience so i've just been hiring the right lawyers like the first deals that i did with my artists i was wrong with them i had all the publishing but i didn't know any better so once i realized that i gave it all back wow uh what about um kind of now the next few years like i know you know you're really for you've got the the ceo brand you've got the american new what's what's the thing that really ignites you now and gets you excited to be honest the stuff that i'm doing in education and politics is really uh exciting number one helping people is exciting like you know i'm down with this osg which is called all school grounds it's uh hundreds of principals

from economically challenged areas and i was able to give the principals a um a master class on entrepreneurial shit so that they could become entrepreneurs so they could teach you the principals a master class on entrepreneurship so that they could become entrepreneurs, so they could teach you. And because of that, I'm able to go into the schools and give curriculum, but also we made a book. My girl wrote a book called Dusko Goes to Space, and it brings the cognitive skills up,

teaches them about space, sees them out of dream. And I was able, based on my television network, to give education a platform and proper politics a platform to have a voice. I get to give them the power. So I'm really excited about that. The changes that I can make

within the jail system, the recidivism rate has been consistently over 90% because most children or most people that come out of jail, or if you don't know how to read by the time you're in the fourth grade, they build a jail cell for you. And the average kid that comes out of a juvenile facility has less than a fourth grade reading level. And that guarantees that that kid's going to go back to jail. So having answers and solutions for the problems and also figuring out how to monetize that as well.

So in making movies, I made this movie called The Prince of Detroit about a black family that made their money generationally in healthcare and government contracts, I started to learn where they're, how American wealth is actually built. It's all built with government contracts. So understanding that and being able to teach that and also being able to explore all that has been pretty impactful for me and exciting at this stage in my life. Being an actual rock star and being on stage, actually directing, understanding new business, like the new language everyone's speaking with CPMs and AI, all the things you could do with data. But when I make a business,

I don't think about what people have done in the past or the present. I'm thinking about what people are going to be doing in the future. And that's why I'm so prepared at this point. What's different about me than anyone else is, again, in traditional business, people go and raise money. And they have the room to bleed. Everyone gets a salary. You get your marketing. You still get paid even though there's losses every day

with me i have to take losses and pay bills and live a lifestyle and i'm insane i have so many different ideas so many verticals in my brain that i want to make into tangible tangible realities without compromise that i have to do it without raising a dollar. I do it on my own. Once I create something, then either I figure out how to scale, which is where I'm at now, or I got to go raise some money for growth. And until that happens, you're broke. So you're looking at a dude right now, and I call it broke because I ain't looking at no money and day to day you got to keep the lights on but if i go raise 50 million real fast you know i might not have to dilute as much or if i want to go raise some money and acquire something and get myself a payroll

from that i could do that too but i'm just so i'm having so much fun being a creative and a businessman so i just gotta know just got to scale right now. I'm one deal away from the big dance. One advertising, just one thing away because I have technology that most people don't. And I have content. Yeah, I mean, they often say content's the future. And I see what you're building there.

Ad tech is the future. Yeah, yeah. What would you say, you know, a lot of people that listen to this show, they're beginner entrepreneurs, first few years building their first million dollar thing. What would you say? Give some advice to someone in that kind of beginning phase.

It always comes with struggle. Your dreams are not given to you you have to fight for them and be prepared to pimp it you know when one thing doesn't work you gotta go to the next but never quit but be smart you know it doesn't mean quick or stop it means evolve and change your model because the models are changing damn like you know you think it makes sense to invest in an electric car company right now you're done it would be investing in the hydrogen car you know they're going to go on water you would know that this electric thing is not sustainable it's just the way you have to think things change you have to pivot you know i mean yeah yeah and what about the talking about the pivot side do you have any uh examples in your

life where there was like something was crushing it doing well and then something happened and you had to make a big change but then it ended up being even better because i've seen that myself i tried to get a record deal no one was signed jay-z i had to do it myself it wasn't for that it wasn't for the rejection there would be no rockefeller you know people told me not to sign kanye they was rejected and there was no there was no rejection there would be no greatness yeah wow crazy your dreams have to be so big that no one else sees them and you have to be prepared to do it yourself if people could see him they would have did it so it's a good thing i love that, I think a lot of what I've seen, I don't know about you, but that's one of the big things that stopped a lot of entrepreneurs

is that belief in themselves, right? I don't have to forget it. It's like saying you're a boxer or a football player, any kind of competitive sport, and you don't get in there thinking you're going to win. Yeah. You have to have supreme confidence if you jump into war yeah yeah i think for me i've always said that i think uh one reason

i'm successful is i have this extreme confidence that's born a borderline arrogance but that's what makes me go all in on everything can go in and all in is what brings the result right and it sounds like you've kind of seen that yourself too that um you know even when i have to be confident when you're what when you're successful sure and i never gauge how um successful i am by the money in my bank because i gauge how successful i am by how confident i am in betting it all in my future dream. Every time I get into a new business, I don't expect to actually know it the first day. Like, don't be arrogant and think that because you've done something you haven't been successful at because it makes sense, it's going to work. You've got to know that the first time you do something, no matter what, it's going to work. You got to know that the first time you do something,

no matter what, it's going to be curvable. God, we're in this vibration, this life to be challenged. There is no one that you know, or me, or anyone that you know, knows someone rich, poor, black, white, whatever, that goes through life with no problem it doesn't exist everyone has the same amount of problems everyone feels the same amount of of balls pain it's just all relative so don't think anything is going to be perfect and the minute you think in your mind it is god's going to remix it because he doesn't want you to get it the first time or they want you to be challenged it's about seeing how you react our behavior patterns are being studied by god the same way we just study other people's behavior you know it's not the problems you're getting it's it's how you're coping with those problems

i think that separates the successful and the not successful and even in the workplace right we fire employees that don't handle those problems well and have negativity versus a positive, figure it out kind of approach, which is what makes entrepreneurs so great. Then when you fire them because they didn't do their job, they make up something to sue you to go get some more money. It's always your fault, right? You learn that as a CEO, as a business owner. One more question for you um you know you've obviously kind of worked with so many powerful people in your life obviously yourself included what's one thing a lot of you know at brands we work with they're working with celebrities

and influencers and you've kind of grown up in that world what are some tips when trying to work with some of these powerful people or well-known figures and incorporating them into growing brands don't ever let somebody get something on you to where they can control don't go get drunk in the club and think because they're doing it they sometimes doing it just so they got you doing all money is not good money you have to be consistent you gotta got to live your brand every day, all day long, even when you sleep to the second you wake up, you know, and just don't conform to other people's bad ways of doing business. That's always the test. And you're only tested based on your faith and faith comes with time so you have to go through some bad to appreciate the good yeah don't don't sit it's just a lesson just breathe easy and be cool always be cool i love

that where in these new ventures um are you kind of getting some wins or what's what are some things in the new ventures that you're having some struggles, right? The thing that's popping in most of the kids' books, Rocky sold 60,000 of those this year, this fiscal. Wow. And, you know, for American New, we have close to 50,000 downloads. I haven't put a dollar into growth. I had a dollar into marketing.

It's just been straight hand-to-hand, and that's amazing. Wow. You know, with programmatic, it's about engagement. You need at least a million hits or engagements a day to make some real coin. And that doesn't happen overnight. And I just think the only issue is I'm broke. Like, I got to wait for the money to come back. So waiting for that makes me uncomfortable.

Again, unless I scale, figure out how to go get these ads, branded ads, as opposed to waiting for the programmatic, then it'll be time to raise. But right now, my family owes 100%. We haven't diluted. We never raised. Usually what happens, again, when you raise for a big idea, you're giving 80% of that up.

Yes. So you only get 20 if you get paid out last. You don't want that. So I try to, when i choose to dilute i want it to be a different way i'd rather keep 80 and you get 20 i'd rather have skin in the game pause like millions and shit that would cost people a lot of money and a lot of time i already got it turnkey so we could either merge or acquisition based on now, or I could figure out how to scale, get these ads and start making money and up to cover my expenses

and to put some money into growth because you could always pay for distribution like that. Yeah, I think it's cool to see like even after all your success and experience, you're onto something new and you're kind of playing that long game right and you're building from the ground up and i think that's funny to you know from 54 years old i literally retired from rockefeller at 35 yeah crazy but then i've

been having a ball it's been 20 years wow you know i mean and i'm still excited and i suggest that again for me what keeps me going what keeps me young what keeps me cool is living with a purpose for sure it's not something to wake up and fight for but the problem is you know sometimes i make my family like not my kids they they never feel they're not broke. My kids are never broke. They're my baby mothers. They got it. They got all the bread. You know, the ones that are rocky witchy, sometimes I don't want them to have to feel that anxiety when the IRS starts knocking and when you start getting the lawsuits. You know, I know what's going to happen and I don't really care about no money because no one gets paid unless I got money.

So if I hold $12, $20 million, unless I make $20 million, how the fuck are you going to get it? Snatching every single dollar I make, there's no way I can flip. So until I make a certain amount of money, the government and everyone else should be helping me get there so i could pay off whatever debt that i got yeah they say in entrepreneurship the first goal is always to make the money and then the new goal becomes how to keep the money right it's the second thing keeping the money is the business that that's the hardest making money is too easy never base your bills on your best year that's true for people that uh you know, want to learn more and maybe be part of some of the stuff

you're doing now and learn more about the stuff that you're up to now. So you go to American, download it, free American NU tour. And, you know, I'm on TikTok and I'm on, you know,

I got a lot of followers on Instagram. Everything does go poppin' tits. Anything on Dane Dash is a phone. And we'll put that in the show notes too, guys. This has been an awesome episode. Thank you so much for coming on. It's amazing to hear the story, the lessons, and some of the takeaways.

I mean, some of the truths that everyone needs to hear and stay aligned to. And hearing that it's not all sunshine and rainbows, right? There's a lot of challenges. And yeah, I love how, you know, kind of genuine and honest you are. I mean, it will's a lot of challenges and um yeah i love how you know kind of genuine and and honest you are i mean it will help a lot of people so thank you for your time thank you for uh being a part of the red light and we'll see you guys soon take care later