Dame Dash Says Lyor Cohen Negatively Impacted His Relationship With Jay Z

The history of Dame Dash's time at Def Jam Records and his
relationship with former label executive Lyor Cohen is long and storied.
Recently sitting down with Complex TV , Dash talked about why he
believed Lyor Cohen is bad for Hip Hop culture and claims his decisions
have hurt certain situations.
"I personally don't like how he interfered with my personal relationship
with Jay Z and the history that could have been made had he not did
what he did and the way he did it," he said. "I think he should be
questioned for it. I'm not usually one to speak on other people's
business... like I've seen the way he's treated friends of mine. Irv Gotti,
I feel like he robbed Irv Gotti of DMX and Ja Rule and I didn't see them
support Irv when he was having his defining moments. No one sent me
any kites in my defining moments and I just don't think it's fair to
continuously make money off our culture, not make money off your own
culture, not use any of your money to help our culture but use the money
you make from us to help your own culture and then not to give the
respect to the people that are the DNA of the culture and to instill a
mentality that we need to ask another culture to put out our own music.
I don't like who he empowers and how he empowers them."
Dame Dash Says Lyor Cohen Hurt His Relationship With Curren$y
He would later describe his distaste for Lyor's decision to hire Todd
Moscowitz as head Asylum Records and claimed Moscowitz had no
musical background making the move non-sensical. He also said Lyor was
destructive in Curren$y's career as well.
"I don't like when he hired Todd Moscowitz to run Asylum," he said. "I
don't think Todd as a lawyer knew anything about music. It just seemed
like complete nepotism using other people's money. And the 360 deal is
dangerous and they invented it and the little that the artist has left,
which is his show and his merch, now they're justifying taking it from
them. So I don't like the way Joie [Manda] and Lyor and Todd played
with my relationship with Curren$y, I think they did a lot to hurt that
kid's career... I don't like all the lawyers who made money off him by
putting him through the ringer."
I want the creative to be able to roam free and not having to worry
about being manipulated by somebody that's smiling, pretending that
he's with you but he's robbing you because when they rob you, they
don't come as the enemy, they come as a friend."
Finally, Dame claimed that it was Lyor that ruined his relationship with
former business partner Jay Z and said Cohen always made it look like
the two were fighting.
"I don't like they way they made it look like I had a problem with Jay, I
never had a problem with Jay, he's an artist," he said. "My beef was
always with Lyor. It was never what they tried to make it look like and
they always do that."
Dame Dash also recently sat down with Vlad TV and talked about Lyor
Cohen at length. He claimed Cohen ruined Roc-A-Fella Records, calling
him "a fake CEO" and a "culture vulture."