What I learned from Damon Dash
The hip hop entrepreneur on acting as if you have a plane to catch, every working day
In 2003, I interviewed Damon Dash for Glamour magazine.
At the time, he was Jay Z’s manager and business partner, running a successful music label, Roc-A-Fella, and one of the first big streetwear brands, Rocawear.
He’d arrived in London to launch launched a high-profile collaboration with Victoria Beckham — her first venture into fashion. At the same time, he was juggling a dizzying array of other projects: films, a new nightclub, branding on all kinds of products.
I’m not holding him up as a particularly great role model here.
After acrimoniously splitting with Jay Z in 2004, Dash has had a somewhat chequered career, his successes marred by conflict and court cases. But there was something he said, during our meeting, that has stuck with me ever since.
I was asking about his exhausting schedule, about what drove him. And he talked about how you behave when you have an early morning flight. You don’t lie in bed once your alarm has gone off. You don’t procrastinate, or get distracted. Instead you get up, you get ready, you get out and you go…
