Till We Collapse: How to Sabotage Your Rap Crew—in 7 Easy Steps!

Image via Complex Original

Memphis Bleek was Jay Z's apprentice. Beanie Sigel was Jay Z's ace. Cam'ron was...something else. Since Roc-a-Fella disbanded in 2004, Cam, the Diplomats, and Dame Dash have addressed the label's split in a series of interviews, with Cam'ron admitting that he and Jay never saw eye-to-eye since the day Dame recruited Dipset from Columbia Records. Apparently, Dipset was too rowdy for Jay's corporatist vision, which took shape in 2002 and beyond. By then, quirky, crazed college dropout Kanye West was risk enough; never mind Jim Jones or State Property's Peedi Crack. From the jump, Dipset was a coup in the making, a powder keg primed to blow. 

When you're winning, you're happy, so faded off income and acclaim that you'd be a fool to complain about your labelmates and sketchy bosses. So long as everyone's getting paid, what's worth fighting over? Assuming everyone's checks have cleared. Otherwise, like N.W.A in its prime, the seeds of your employees' discontent will sprout sooner or later. Before you know, your best writer will be itching to go solo.

The downside of an overloaded rap roster is that all the B- and C-grade talent will be waiting in the wings until the banner acts get their singles and projects off. If you're on a label with two or more high-profile rappers, know that your releases might get bumped with little notice, indefinitely. That's life. That's business. That was Tyga's predicament, in fact; now it's Weezy's.

You mad? 

Remember that weird, early-2004 phase of the Roc-a-Fella collapse when Jay and Kanye mocked rumors that Jay and Dame were on the outs? "The chain remains; the gang is intact." Jay lied to the people because the pain of his split from Dame and Biggs was too painful for the kids to bear all at once. Mind you, Jay and Kanye ran this charade on the "Diamonds" remix, after Jay, Dame, and Biggs had sold off their stake in Roc-a-Fella to Def Jam. That was merely the beginning of the end.

Remember that weird, early-2006 period when literally every musician who had ever signed to Roc-a-Fella had awful things to say about either Jay Z or Dame Dash in a clusterfuck parade of interviews and lo-fi diss records? You gotta love it.

This is as frustrating for the label as it is for the fans, and, above all, it's tragic for the artist. Roc-a-Fella lost Sigel to prison and an IRS audit. MMG briefly lost Meek to county jail. Bad Boy lost half its post-Ma$e roster to a secret, mythical island with wax palm trees, empty Ciroc bottles, and canceled checks. Wu-Tang lost ODB in the worst way possible: R.I.P.

Nothing incites finger-pointing quite like commercial failure. When your white-hot run is said and done, and all your acclaim is expired, and you've botched all attempts at internal amends, all that's left is for your roster to flop, collectively, each quarter's releases sinking lower, lower still—or worse yet, whiff on all the year's release dates, if the situation is truly that dire. Break up. Blame RZA. Reunite. Blame RZA. Pray for a late-stage Drake co-sign, lest the critics and hip-hop historians pronounce you dead in your tracks. If so: Blame RZA.