By Maurice Bobb
Hot 97’s Funkmaster Flex directed a bellicose radio rant at Dame Dash again on Thursday (June 5) after the former Roc-A-Fella mogul tried to defend his calling out of former Def Jam executive Joie Manda as one of hip-hop’s “culture vultures.”
Flex was initially riled up after reading Dame’s Instagram post Monday, which featured a headshot of Manda, calling Flex’s former A&R a “clown.”
The popular DJ fired off his own shots, but kept the audio under wraps out of “respect” for Champagne Dame.
But now, apparently, there’s a thin line between respect and rants.
After yelling “cut the song!” Funk Flex dove into a lengthy diatribe, filled with stories and explanations about how he came to know Dame, his experiences with him and why he believed his “culture vultures” insult was out of line.
“Right now, stick to artwork and clothing and slippers,” he said. “Do that. That’s all you. That’s your lane. Let me do this music thing up here. I got this. Roc-A-Fella didn’t give me any money to play nothin’, always had paper. Nice try!”
“Culture vultures? What is that?” he continued. “People who are not of his color capitalizing on the culture? Is that what is being said? Don’t try to say you ever paid me to play records. Tell the story of how you was tryin’ to pay the person next to me to get me to play records. You remember that conversation?”
Flex then dug into his archives for the origins of Jay and Dame’s storied music label and how it took a “culture vulture” to get things off the ground.
“[Jay Z’s]‘Ain’t No’ with Foxy Brown woulda died out here if Def Jam didn’t pick it up,” he said. “There was a movie soundtrack, Nutty Professor, that picked up that single. I remember it clearly. Remember when the culture vulture cut you that check?! I’m tellin’ you what this is ’cause I been in the game and a lot of people can’t comment on this and that’s what this cornball is banking on. If that didn’t get picked up by Def Jam you woulda been Boo Boo Records, OK?”
While hip-hop has moved towards independent labels and guerilla-styled music videos, in the ’90s, video and album budgets teetered into the millions.
“When your label situations get signed in the ’90s, he was getting $2 to $3 million in overhead,” he said. “He was getting million dollar video budgets. He was getting million dollar album budgets. The culture vulture cut him those checks! Who put a gun to his head to sign those deals? Everybody woulda took those deals and he took them and was successful at it. He’s a sore winner. The culture vulture allowed you to call yourself the cakeaholic! Def Jam let that logo live! You don’t wanna look in the mirror and take the mistakes you made! Don’t be mad at me ’cause I’m still current and you’re not. Don’t be mad ’cause I stuck up for my friend.”
Next on Flex’s list was the unpaid artists that Dame has allegedly left in his wake.
“When you gonna give Beans his $11 million for State Property that you didn’t give him yet?” he asked. “Is that a culture vulture? You did it to yourself. He had another label deal after the Roc and he signed Curren$y. Curren$y put out two albums. You didn’t pay Currren$y on one song, B. Who’s the culture vulture? You didn’t pay him cause you didn’t see how digital he was. You didn’t have a computer. You were in a slipper, art coma.”
To close out his rant, Flex brought up the now infamous Dame spaz out he made at the Def Jam offices. The video from that freakout went viral back in 2009.
“This guy complains about anybody next to Hov,” he said. “I wouldn’t have been stupid enough to let Lyor, Steve Stoute get that close to him. I wouldna been dumb enough. And what are you mad at? ‘Cause they helped him get further? All that tearing people down is called a sore winner. This guy’s in a marketing meeting screaming and yelling at people. He was getting so angry in that meeting ’cause Jay had already deaded him. The relationship was in turmoil. They’re not looking at you ’cause they know you’re finished already! They didn’t honor you in that meeting. He was done already!”
Before cueing the station’s music back up, Flex lobbed one more parting shot, calling out Dame’s lack of adaptability.
“You didn’t adapt to the game,” he said, laughing at the prospect of Dame coming up to the station to discuss the matter. “The game changed. Debate what? You’re out of the music business. You’re still in dreamland.”
This is still far from over, however, as Dame dropped by The Combat Jack Show Thursday night to tell his side of the story. The audio from that interview is slated to be released Friday.
Listen to the full rant here:
No Comments