There is once again peace between the members of the Roc-A-Fella Records dynasty, as Dame Dash and Jay-Z finally settle their dispute over Dash’s plans for an NFT supposedly based on Jay’s debut album, Reasonable Doubt. According to TMZ, both parties have elected to settle out of court, with Dame agreeing that only Roc-A-Fella has the rights to sell any future NFTs based on Reasonable Doubt, which means none of the individual shareholders — Dame, Jay, and Kareem “Biggs” Burke — can sell the album. Dame can, however, sell his stake in the company at any time.
The dispute kicked off a year ago this week when Dame offered a Reasonable Doubt NFT via online auction, prompting Jay (via Roc-A-Fella) to sue to stop the sale. Dame later clarified that his plan was to sell his third of Roc-A-Fella after Jay tried to buy it a few months before for a lower price than Dame wanted. In Dame’s words, “Under the terms of the deal with a potential buyer, the buyer would buy my share of Roc a Fella Records, and Jay-Z will have exclusive administration rights.”
After a judge blocked the sale, more details were revealed. SuperFarm, Dame’s partner in the NFT bid, had announced the auction would be for his “ownership of the copyright to Jay-Z’s first album Reasonable Doubt.” This is likely what led to the initial dispute because it could be read that SuperFarm was trying to sell Reasonable Doubt rather than Dame’s stake in Roc-A-Fella Records. Now that they’ve hashed out the exact terms of ownership of the album, Dame might be able to find a buyer for the actual stake.