Dash sells

Damon Dash has exited his label Rocawear, selling his 25 percent stake for £30 million. Instead he prefers to focus on his wife Rachel Roy's contemporary line, his Damon Dash menswear collection, the State Property sportswear line and the athletic collection Team Roc.

“In the past five years, I've learned so much and made so much money that I don't feel any animosity,” he told WWD. “We've all prospered.” With this he referred to his partners hip hopper Jay-Z and Russian investors Alex Bize and Norton Cher of the Comet Group.

“I feel like my partners don't understand what I'm trying to represent. We were getting a bit too demographic. I also think my partners, but not Jay – he wasn't really active as far as the business went – were thinking I was using Rocawear to fund my lifestyle. I think they felt like I was using Rocawear money to fund everthing else I was doing when, in actuality, I was funding other companies, like America magazine, out of my own pocket.”

Dash told WWD that his partners took out a loan to acquire his 25 percent and he's happy. “I don't know what they're going to do with my 25 percent but I don't care. Just give me my money.”

September 2005