With Damon Dash’s new BlakRoc project hitting stands last Friday (November 28), hip-hop fans were shocked to find so many different types of artists together on one disc. Yet surprisingly, Ludacris, one of the rappers that was originally named as a feature on the disc, was nowhere to be found.
In a recent interview with streetlevel.com, Dash explained in detail why Luda refused to be on the eclectic album, which coupled Jim Jones, Pharoahe Monch, Mos Def, Rza, Raekwon, and Billy Danze of M.O.P. among others over instrumentals by indie rock group The Black Keys.
Apparently Dash found old vocals that Luda layed down for the never-released Ol’ Dirty Bastard Roc-A-Fella LP and wanted to use it for the BlakRoc disc. Yet the Atlanta rapper wasn’t down with the program.
“I was really hurt and disappointed with the way Ludacris carried the situation,” the Roc-A-Fella co-founder said. “Because When Ol’ Dirty first died we had a record with Ludacris, and we were gonna put it out, and [Ludacris and his longtime manager Chaka Zulu] were like we need to get paid. Come on man he’s dead, that was like a recoupable cost against his project and hes gonna have to take care of his family with that and they wouldn’t clear the record.” [Watch below]
“We were like let’s remix the Ol’ Dirty record cause I wanted to get him back out there and they love dirty,” he reasoned about resurrecting the verse. “…That’s the only vocal that I found in that period of time, where there wasn’t any music underneath it. So they were able to remix the record and Ludacris was on it. So I was like I know they’re gonna give me a problem.”
“Finally I get Chaka and he goes ‘I didn’t like the record,’” he added, “’[and] Ludacris hasn’t heard it’…an hour later Ludacris calls and he says ‘I don’t like the record, you gotta repect my creative.’ And I’m like ‘yo dog, first of all this is for Ol’ Dirty, that’s gonna put him back on and we could put his stuff out for his estate but second of all trust me, I shouldn’t have to clear nothing, I would never deny you. Just based on our relationship, we know each other, how do you do that to anybody in your same culture.”
BlacRoc is currently available in stores and online and repotedly all parties involved are already working on a sequel. —Elan Mancini
