After Damon Dash criticized Jay-Z for collaborating with R. Kelly on two albums, his cameo appearance in the duo's video for "Fiesta" has resurfaced on Twitter.
In a recent interview on the That's Fucked Up podcast, the Roc-A-Fella co-founder made it clear he's not a fan of Hov working with Kelly, who married Aaliyah when he was 27 and she was 15.
"I just couldn't believe he did a project with R. Kelly knowing that he'd raped my girl," said Dash, who dated Aaliyah from sometime around 2000 to her death in an airplane accident the following year. She was 21 when they started going out, he was 29. “I was like, ‘Just don’t put my name on that, I don’t want no money from that. If it is, put it to Aaliyah foundation.’"
On Twitter, however, some pointed out that he was in the music video for the remix of R. Kelly's 2001 track "Fiesta," which featured Jay-Z and Boo & Gotti. "But he was in the video tho," wrote one Twitter user.
In 2019, Dash said that he appeared in the "Fiesta" video after Aaliyah asked him to. "I was in 'Fiesta,' but only because Aaliyah said she wanted me to do it that way," said Dash, who distanced himself from Jay-Z and Kelly's collaborative album earlier that same year.
"I really am not on the Best of Both Worlds. I didn't go to a show. I didn't have my name on any of that. I was in 'Fiesta,' but only because Aaliyah said she wanted me to do it that way," Dash explained in a convo with Kenyatta Griggs. "I know I'm not fuckin' with that... I knew, morally, [Jay-Z and I] weren't the same. So, to me, Roc-a-Fella was defunct. It was over. I couldn't fuck with it. It was something that, to me—I don't wanna say 'unforgivable,' but I couldn't understand it."
Production duo Trackmasters told Complex's Insanul Ahmed in 2012 that working on Best of Both Worlds was something of a disaster. "Everything that could have went wrong with that album did," said Poke. The entire record came together without either of the vocalists in the studio together. “[The relationship between Jay-Z and R. Kelly] fell apart on tour. But it fell apart before [the infamous mase incident at MSG], that’s just when everyone got wind of it. It was doomed from opening night in Chicago," added Tone.
Earlier this year, 56-year-old Kelly was sentenced to 20 further years in prison on child pornography and enticement charges. 19 of the years in the sentence can be served concurrently with the 30-year sentence he received last year for racketeering and sex trafficking.
Elsewhere on the That's Fucked Up podcast earlier this month, Dash said Jay's response to Nas' diss record "Ether" was "terrible."
