(Photo: Courtesy MTV)

By Calvin Stovall

Where is Dame Dash? It’s not that the Roc-A-Fella co-founder is hard to find; if you spend enough time in New York’s SOHO neighborhood, you’re bound to run into him at a Curren$y show or trendy art gallery. But as much as Dame may be enjoying his downtime from the spotlight, his presence is greatly missed by the hip hop world.

Think back to Roc-A-Fella’s heyday in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Back before he and Jay-Z had their falling out. Dame was to hip hop what Mark Cuban is to basketball, what Al Davis was to football and what George Steinbrenner was to the major leagues. More outspoken than most rappers, Dame often turned people off with his brash personality. But no matter how off the wall the quote from Dame, we always knew that his greatest allegiance was to the culture.

His gift for spotting and fostering talent was unmatched. He played a key role in molding two of today’s greatest MCs (You may know them as The Throne) and his ability to identify a potent rap movement and build a lane for them to shine was quite evident in his work with Harlem’s Dipset, Philly’s State Property, which made the Roc one of the deepest, most consistent rap labels of all time.

While Dam has said publicly that most of today’s MCs don’t impress him much, I’m sure he still has the eye and the fire somewhere deep down inside to find the next big thing. He did it for Kanye West, why can’t he do it again?

But beyond all of the tangible things that Dame could offer today, what we miss most about him is his spirit. Bold, cocky and outspoken, Dame embodied hip hop’s truest essence like none before or after. His personality was as brilliant as his business moves. Hopefully someday soon he’ll return to shine his light on the game.

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