DAMON DASH AND JAY-Z THOUGHT DIDDY AND THE NOTORIOUS B.I.G. ‘WERE COPYING US’

Damon Dash and Jay-Z were convinced that Diddy and The Notorious B.I.G were “copying” their real lives.

Damon Dash recalls the early Roc-A-Fella days when he and Jay-Z allegedly accused Diddy and The Notorious B.I.G of “copying” their style.

The Roc-A-Fella co-founder appeared on Patrick Bet-David’s PBD Podcast where he shared tales from the ’90s when he and Jay-Z were on the come-up in hip-hop while Diddy and The Notorious B.I.G. had Bad Boy Records dominating the scene. Jay and B.I.G. knew each other from their time attending Westinghouse High School in Brooklyn, New York, and it made Dash feel comfortable enough to smoke marijuana with the “Juicy” rapper.

From hanging out and spending so much time together, Dash says he and Jay became convinced that they were influencing Diddy and B.I.G. to imitate their real lives.

“Because we were getting the money and popping the bottles and all that, in that moment, we had always felt that Biggie and Puffy were copying us. They’d see us in the club and it seemed like the next day, a record would be made,” Dash asserted.

According to Dash, Jay and B.I.G.’s forms of hustling were on two different levels. According to Dash, the “Hard Knock Life” rapper was pushing narcotics from state to state with help from high-level contacts, while B.I.G. was limited to holding down the streets of Brooklyn.

“We was really getting money. No disrespect to Biggie but it was a different hustle. We weren’t on the streets pitching work. We were [about] connects, connects, connects,” Dash explained.

The belief that Diddy, then known as Puff Daddy, and B.I.G. were possibly biting their style led to tension between the crews that took time to move past.

“But that lifestyle of [a] hustler, that was us. That was them copying us, for sure. So we kinda had problems,” Dash admitted. “I was run up [on] sometimes. I was confrontational with Biggie and
them at first, but we finally got cool.”