Dame Dash is calling out Jay-Z for collaborating with R. Kelly on the pair's 2002 joint album The Best of Both Worlds and its 2004 sequel Unfinished Business.
During an appearance on the That’s Fucked Up podcast, the Roc-A-Fella co-founder reflected on Jay's working relationship with Kelly, who in 1994 married 15-year-old Aaliyah when he was 27 years old.
According to Dame, who started dating Aaliyah a year or so before the R&B singer passed away in 2001, Hov's decision to collaborate with R. Kelly bothered him.
"I just couldn't believe he did a project with R. Kelly knowing that he'd raped my girl," Dash shared. “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.’"
"Like, they did this shit twice," Dame added, referring to Jay and Kelly's second collab project.
Earlier this year, 56-year-old Kelly was sentenced to an additional 20 years in prison on child pornography and enticement charges. 19 of those years can be served concurrently with the 30-year prison sentence Kelly received last year on charges of racketeering and sex trafficking.
It isn't the first time Dame has ripped Jay for working with R. Kelly. During a 2019 interview with Kenyatta Griggs, Dash pegged Hov's decision to team up with the disgraced R&B star as a reason for Roc-A-Fella's decline in the wake of Dame and Jay's falling out.
"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 at the time. "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."
See Dame's full episode of That’s Fucked Up below.
