roc-a-fella records

Just a week before a court-ordered auction of Damon Dash’s one-third stake in Jay-Z’s Roc-A-Fella Records, there’s a stunning new wrinkle: New York State says he owes more than $8.7 million in unpaid taxes and that the Roc-A-Fella proceeds must be used to pay down the huge debt.
In a motion filed Wednesday in Manhattan federal court, New York’s Department of Taxation & Finance asked to legally intervene in the proceedings ahead of the Aug. 29 auction, in which the United States Marshals Service will auction off Dash’s 33.3% interest in the storied record company.

The tax authorities claim that Dash owes more than $8.7 million in unpaid taxes and penalties from personal income he reported from 2005 and 2018 – and that the Roc-A-Fella auction might be their last shot at recouping a debt that has been “delinquent for far too long.”

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“To date, the Department has been unsuccessful in its efforts to collect the unpaid New York State tax debt owed by Dash,” attorneys for the state wrote. “Intervening in this matter may be the Department’s only opportunity to collect some of the unpaid taxes Dash owes to New York.”

The new wrinkle is sure to complicate an already-complex situation. The Roc-A-Fella auction is being held to satisfy an $823,000 judgment against Dash, won by movie producer Josh Webber in a civil lawsuit over a failed film partnership. But New York City’s Department of Social Services will actually have first dibs, since Dash also owes a total of $145,096 in unpaid child support.

In their filing on Wednesday, the tax department stressed that it does not seek to jump ahead of child services in pecking order for auction proceeds. But it offered no such promise to Webber – and pointedly noted that it had secured a lien against the Roc-A-Fella proceeds more a decade earlier than he had.

Set to take place next week at a Manhattan hotel, the Roc-A-Fella auction will have a minimum bid of $1.2 million. The sale will be for Dash’s stake in Roc-A-Fella Inc., an entity whose primary asset is Jay-Z’s iconic debut album Reasonable Doubt. The rest of the catalog of music released by Roc-A-Fella, which dissolved in 2013, isn’t involved.

The owners of the other two-thirds of Roc-A-Fella — label cofounders Jay-Z (Shawn Carter) and Kareem “Biggs” Burke — have already attempted to stop the auction, including making changes to the company’s bylaws and intervening in the lawsuit. But a federal judge rejected such opposition in February.

The auction will be coordinated by Webber’s attorney, Chris Brown, who told Billboard earlier this month that he had received numerous inquiries from potential bidders, including corporate investors, high-profile individuals and collectors. Brown not immediately return a request for comment Thursday on the Department of Taxation & Finance’s request to access the proceeds.

Though the auction’s minimum bid has been set at $1.2 million, it’s entirely unclear how much a potential buyer is going to be willing to spend on Dash’s one-third stake.

The royalties from Reasonable Doubt would likely provide them a revenue stream; since its 1996 release, Reasonable Doubt has racked up 2.2 million equivalent album units in the U.S., according to Luminate, including 21,500 units so far this year. But the eventual buyer also would be a minority owner in a company controlled by hostile partners, with little ability to perform typical due diligence on the asset they’re about to purchase. And Roc-A-Fella’s rights to Reasonable Doubt will potentially expire in 2031 thanks to copyright law’s termination right, which would allow Jay-Z himself to reclaim full control.

If any money from the auction is left over, it will go to Dash himself. In a statement to Billboard last month, his attorney Natraj Bhushan said that he and his client would be at the Aug. 29 event and “expect a robust auction with bids entering the several millions if not higher.” Bhushan did not immediately return a request for comment Thursday on the Department of Taxation & Finance’s request to access the proceeds.

Damon Dash’s one-third stake in Jay-Z’s Roc-A-Fella Records is going up for auction later this month — but a source tells Billboard that the shares might come with some key limitations.
According to federal court filings this week, the United States Marshals Service will auction off Dash’s 33.3% interest in the storied record company to satisfy an $823,000 judgment against him in a lawsuit filed by movie producer Josh Webber over a failed film partnership.

The auction, set for Aug 29 at a Midtown Manhattan hotel, will have a minimum bid of $1.2 million, and prospective bidders will be required to post a $240,000 deposit for the right to take part in the proceedings.

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The sale will be for Dash’s stake in Roc-A-Fella Inc., an entity whose primary assets are the rights to Jay-Z’s iconic debut album Reasonable Doubt. According to an April article by Rolling Stone, the rest of the catalog of music released by Roc-A-Fella, which dissolved as an operational label in 2013, is owned by other entities and isn’t involved.

The owners of the other two-thirds of Roc-A-Fella — label cofounders Jay-Z (Shawn Carter) and Kareem “Biggs” Burke — have already attempted to stop the auction, including making changes to the company’s bylaws and intervening in the lawsuit. But a federal judge rejected such opposition in February.

The chance to own a valuable piece of rap IP will surely draw bidders, but a source with knowledge of the situation tells Billboard that there are important limitations to what is being auctioned off — namely, that they are buying a stake in a company with other members.

“Whomever buys Dame’s stake in Roc-A-Fella will be a minority owner without authority over any decision-making,” the source tells Billboard. “They won’t have the ability to sell the copyright or borrow against the master as all decisions require majority vote.”

The source also cautioned that the clock was ticking on Roc-A-Fella’s rights to Reasonable Doubt: “There’s also an expiration date on the master ownership for the company, which means revenue and the only asset doesn’t have many years left.”

The auction will be coordinated by Webber’s attorney, Chris Brown. He did not immediately return a request for comment on Thursday.

Webber won his judgment back in 2022 after suing Dash for copyright infringement and defamation over their failed partnership on producing a film called Dear Frank. But Dash has yet to hand over the money, hence the court-ordered auction.

The filmmaker isn’t the only one seeking the money from Dash’s Roc-A-Fella stake. The New York City Department of Social Services (NYCDSS) will actually have first dibs, according to court documents, since Dash owes a total of $145,096 in unpaid child support to a woman named Rachel Roy for his two daughters and to a woman named Cindy Morales for his son.

Brown is also seeking to collect another $155,000 that Dash owes to him and another client, photographer Monique Bunn, from separate legal actions. But they’ve agreed that NYCDSS and Webber deserve to recoup their debts from Dash first.

If any money from the auction is left over, it will go to Dash himself. His attorney did not return a request for comment on Thursday.

Back in 2021, attorneys for Jay-Z and Roc-A-Fella sued Dash after news broke that he was planning to auction off a stake in Reasonable Doubt as a non-fungible token (NFT). They argued that the company, not Dash himself, owned the rights to the album: “The bottom line is simple: Dash can’t sell what he doesn’t own.” A year later, Dash signed a settlement in which he agreed that he had no right to sell any part of Jay-Z’s album — as an NFT or otherwise.

Last year, attorneys for Jay-Z, Biggs and Roc-A-Fella mounted a concerted effort to stop the court-ordered sale of Dash’s stake in the company. After jumping into Webber’s lawsuit, they told a federal judge that the auction would violate company bylaws, which they had amended in 2021 to prohibit such a sale.

But in February, the judge overseeing the case said the updated Roc-A-Fella bylaws had been enacted without Dash’s input and were unenforceable. Instead, he offered an alternative route for Jay-Z and Biggs that would still “readily address their concern” with the sale: “They can participate in the auction and place the winning bid.”