Dame Dash revealed he’d be down to work on a Roc-A-Fella biopic under one condition: he must have full control. While speaking to The Jasmine Brand, the entrepreneur said he’d be open to chronicling the label’s history as long as it’s done on his own terms.
“There’s a time and a place for everything, so if the time and the place is a place I don’t own and a time that I don’t enjoy, then I’m not doing it,” he said. “But on my terms, I’m gonna do everything, but it got to be on my terms, or it doesn’t get done.”
“I’ve controlled everything else, how can I not control my life story If I’m alive?” Dash continued. “That would be a contradiction of the whole story.”
Dame Dash founded Roc-A-Fella Records in 1996 alongside JAY-Z and Kareem “Biggs” Burke. Together, they successfully launched the careers of hip hop artists Kanye West, Cam’ron, Memphis Bleek, Juelz Santana and more, cementing themselves as one of the biggest labels in hip hop history. Given Hollywood’s obsession with biopics, the conversation about a Roc-A-Fella documentary has come up on several occasions over the last few years.
In 2017, for example, Dash revealed he was working on a biopic that would offer exclusive information about the label. “Why would I make a recreation of what everyone saw? I want to make things that no one knew,” he told Hip Hop Motivation. “I want to attack it a way that no one would attack it. If I do it from my perspective, it probably won’t be what everyone is thinking. I won’t do it unless it’s something interesting.”
Biggs later told REVOLT that a biopic was underway that would give fans insight into the founders’ childhood struggles. “It’ll probably be separate stories of JAY, Damon and myself,” he explained. “Showing us as kids to understand what we’ve went through—the pain and hardships. The extenuating circumstances such as me living in a shelter, some people don’t really know that. Being evicted, living in a shelter, and staying in people’s houses and floors for two years. JAY losing his father at four years old when his father left him. Dame losing his mom at 14 years old and having to put himself through private school. So, there were a lot of hardships and things we went through that actually gave us strength.”
With lingering tensions and lawsuits following the dismantling of Roc-A-Fella, only time will tell whether a biopic will come to fruition. After JAY thanked Dash at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, there may be some promise. “We need to squash everything,” Dash said in response to the shoutout. “So, hopefully if that was an extended [olive branch], I’ll spin one back. I have no beef with [him] if [he has] no beef with me. Let’s get the lawyers out of it then. Let’s talk like men, but I definitely appreciate it.”