Maxy

Jay became the President of Def Jam after years of upper management at the Universal Music Group eyeing him for a place in the executive ranks. But Jay came very close to becoming an executive in the Warner Music Group and he struggled with his decision down to the last moment until he was in his lawyer?s office, standing over the Def Jam contract, pen in hand, conflicted and unable to sign for five hours. It started back in 2003, before Jay retired as a rapper, before L.A. Reid was hired to run the Island Def Jam Music Group, back when Lyor Cohen was still the Chairman of Island Def Jam. That year Jay had a meeting with Doug Morris and Morris walked away very impressed. ?I liked him because he comes from an entrepreneurial background,? Morris said. ?When you run a label you learn the whole thing, you get the broad idea of what this business is all about which is more than promotion and marketing and A&R. It gives someone the whole picture when you have to keep the doors open yourself.?

That year Jay also met with Jimmy Iovine, the CEO of Interscope, which is under the Universal Music Group umbrella, on Iovine?s yacht in the South of France and at Bono?s home in the South of France, among other places. They discussed the possibility of Jay becoming an executive within the Universal Music Group and Iovine became a passionate advocate for Jay. Iovine told me, ?He?s a talent, he?s a talent finder, he?s a record maker, he?s a magnet, he?s creative, he?s smart, he sees the music business as a 360, rather than just linear, he?s the modern record guy. He?s got great feel, he?s got great taste, and he knows how to market things. The rest you can learn. How do you let him walk out the door [and leave the Universal system]??

In early 2004 Reid was hired and the search for a new Def Jam President began, but no one else was considered. One night Reid and Jay went out for a drink and a cigar. ?We really opened up and talked for the first time,? Reid says. ?I told him I was thinking about it. He let me know it was interesting for me to be thinking about it.? It was a very gentlemanly courtship. ?We both come from a place where we aren?t desperate,? Reid says, ?so we don?t do the hard sell to anyone. So I didn?t do the hard sell to him and he didn?t do the hard yes to me.? After many more meetings, including afternoon tea with Reid at the Peninsula Hotel, Universal offered Jay a three-year contract to be the President of Def Jam with a seven or eight figure salary, plus part ownership in Rocafella Records (Universal had recently purchased the 50% of Rocafella it didn?t own for $10 million), and, critically, ownership of masters he?d made while at Def Jam. They would become his in ten years.

?We definitely drove a hard bargain,? Reid said. ?But it was never a hard sell, ever.?

Meanwhile, Jay?s old friend Lyor Cohen, had leapfrogged from being Chairman of Island Def Jam to Chairman and CEO of Warner Music Group?s US Recorded Music and he was doing the hard sell. He offered Jay a position overseeing all of Warner Music Group?s labels and a considerable piece of WMG?s initial public offering which could have turned out to be worth many millions. Several times Jay was certain he was going to Warner. The night before he signed the Def Jam contract he called Edgar Bronfman, Jr., the Chairman and CEO of Warner Music Group, Cohen?s boss. ?I called Edgar house at one in the morning and I asked for something. I don?t wanna say what it is, but if he woulda gave me that I woulda [joined Warner]. He sortof agreed to it the next day but by then it was too late. It was too late in my mind.? The next day he went to his lawyer?s office to sign the three-year Def Jam contract, but found himself unable. ?I had my mind made up to do it,? he said, ?but I could not sign it.? He paced the room for five hours. He called Cohen who grabbed Bronfman and raced to the lawyer?s office hoping to change Jay?s mind but in the end he chose Def Jam. The decision turned on the chance to own his masters. ?It?s an offer you can?t refuse,? he said. ?I could say to my son or my daughter, or my nephews if I never have kids, here?s my whole collection of recordings. I own those, they?re yours.?

When Jay decided to accept partial ownership of Rocafella he knew that would upset Damon Dash, who at that point no longer owned a piece of Rocafella. ?I?m like, sh!t, I know Damon gonna feel a way about Rocafella.? So he offered Dash his percentage of Rocafella in return for complete ownership of his debut album Reasonable Doubt, which is owned by Jay, Dash, and their partner Kareem Burke. ?I wasn?t bullying him,? Jay said. ?I was asking for something that was less than what I was offering.? Dash said yes, but then Burke said no. So Jay moved on. ?In my mind,? Jay said, ?and I still believe that to this day, I was bein more than generous.?

Both Jay and Dash say there was never a fight between them and that they?re still friends, but friends say they?d been growing apart slowly since the end of the Hard Knock Life tour in 1999 when Jay began to think about becoming a businessman and began to tire of Dash?s big, aggressive, perpetually combative personality. One executive said Dash was, ?a defibrillator,? meaning he would bring a lot of shock and noise to situations, while Jay handled things with grace. Jay preferred to characterize the split as a result of growing up, but, asked if Dash?s personality started to wear on him he said, ?Yeah, it?s a lot. But, to his credit, when you have that workin for you it?s great.?

After the Rocafella split, the small, but growing crack in their friendship became an irreparable fissure. Dash is still sore about how things went down. ?He?s always gonna be my friend, but what he did as far as taking the [Rocafella] name never sat well with us,? Dash said, referring also to Burke. ?It?s just not the way we were raised. How would you feel if you built a name with your homeboy, fought for it, it blows up, and then in a corporate way they say alright you can take the name and you get it and your boys don?t? He didn?t have to take the name. He just chose to. That?s still my man, but when you think someone?s built a certain way and they?re not, it?s surprising.?

In September Dash sold his stake in Rocawear for more than $20 million, ending his business ties to Jay. Dash no longer wears his Rocafella chain and says he?s no longer sure who Jay-Z is. Dash says, ?I don?t even know that guy anymore.?

Dash said that after Jay began working at Def Jam he knew things between them wouldn?t be the same. ?One time in the winter, when he first took the job, we got on an elevator,? he said, ?and, if I were ever to write a movie this would have to be either the end of it or the serious point when you know things have changed. He was coming from whatever he was doin at Def Jam and I was comin from whatever I was doin and he had on a suit with shoes and a trench coat. And I had on my State Property and my hat to the side. And it was like we were two different people. It was ill. Our conversation was brief, wasn?t no malice, but we honestly were two different people. He was not the same person I had met. I would never expect him to wear a trench coat and shoes. It can just show that people can go in two totally separate directions.?

Behind all the business success and occasional turmoil of the past few years, Jay struggled through two of the most difficult personal moments he?s ever faced. In 2003 it became clear that his father, Adnes ?AJ? Reeves, did not have long to live. Jay didn?t know his father because AJ left the family when Jay was just eleven years old and Jay hadn?t had contact with him since. He has a few memories from when his Dad was in the house. ?He?d take me out and expect me to remember the way we went when I was five years old,? he said. ?He was teaching me how to navigate through the streets. And then we?d ride in the car and he?d say, what size is that woman?s dress? I?d be like, four. He?d say, no, 11, you gotta pay attention. And that helps out a lot in raps when I?m talking about the Christian Louboutin and stuff. That?s still part of me.? But Jay has more memories of the pain of his father leaving him. ?Kids look up to they pop like Superman,? Jay said. ?Superman just left the crib? That?s traumatic sh!t. He was a good guy. It?s just that he didn?t handle the situation well. He handled it so bad that you forget all the good this guy did. The scorn, the resentment, all the feelings from that, as you see, I?m a grown ass man, but it was still there with me.?

Jay?s father?s leaving is one of the most traumatic moments of his life, a moment that led him to become emotionally cold. ?I?d say I changed a little bit.? He paused. ?I changed a lot. I became more guarded. I never wanted to be attached to something and get that taken away again. I never wanted to feel that feeling again [of being left]. I never wanted to be too happy or gung ho about something or too mad about something. I just wanted to be cool about it. And it effects my relationships with women. Cuz even when I was with women I wasn?t really with them. In the back of my mind I?d always feel like, when this sh!t breaks up, you know, whatever. So I never really just let myself go. I was always guarded, always guarded. And always suspicious. I never let myself just go.? (He says that because he?s never let himself go he?s never once been heartbroken over a girl. ?Never, ever. Never. Never.?)

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