The City of New York has some issues with the way the legal and financial battles between Roc-A-Fella Records co-founders Jay-Z and Damon Dash have been developing lately, and now the city’s Department of Social Services has released a document basically accusing Jay of sabotaging the upcoming auction of Dash’s stake in Roc-A-Fella Records, the most valuable item of which would be a share of the rights to Jay-Z’s seminal 1996 debut album “Reasonable Doubt.” TMZ reports that the city is claiming Jay-Z is making untrue statements about the nature of the rights that could be suppressing bidding.
Why is NYC interested? Because the auction of Dash’s Roc-A-Fella stake is taking place in order to pay off the $193,000 in child support debt that Dash owes, which is in addition to several million dollars in back taxes he reportedly owes New York State.
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Dash currently owns a 1/3rd stake in the rights to “Reasonable Doubt,” and he’s clashed with Jay-Z in the past over his attempt to sell the album as an NFT. According to Dash (as well as the City of New York), Jay-Z and music executive Steve Stoute have allowed a false impression of Dash’s share of the album rights to form, claiming that they are set to revert back to Jay-Z in just six years. Dash says this isn’t so and that the rights will remain under Roc-A-Fella control (and it follows, whoever the buyer of those rights may be) until 2098. The city’s document claims that little legal distinction could make a difference of ten times the amount of the ultimate winning bid. It makes sense that a buyer would be willing to pay a lot more for rights that will potentially continue to generate revenue almost through the end of the century versus rights that will expire in a mere six years.
For Jay’s part, his and Roc-A-Fella’s attorney Alex Shapiro disputed the city’s entire premise, saying the rapper hasn’t made any public statements one way or the other about the auction, blaming the media for spreading information from his legal team instead. Shapiro’s statement doesn’t admit that the “Reasonable Doubt” rights are indeed going to last through 2098, though, instead that the dispute is “woefully unripe” and that the occasion of the auction is not the appropriate time, forum, or case” to settle the matter.
In the meantime, Dash and the New York City Department of Social Services are hoping some high-rolling bidders will be willing to brave that potential future legal battle with some top-dollar bids.