&#8216;That Was All Over a Girl&#8217;

Dame Dash is offering a different perspective on one of hip-hop’s most infamous incidents, claiming Jay-Z’s 1999 stabbing of music executive Lance “Un” Rivera had something to do with bootlegging, but more to do with Charli Baltimore.

In an interview with The Art of Dialogue, Dash said the altercation, which took place at a New York nightclub ahead of the release of Jay’s Vol. 3… Life and Times of S. Carter, wasn’t primarily sparked by piracy of the album, as was widely reported at the time. While Dash said that played a role, he alleged it mostly stemmed from a personal dispute over Baltimore, who had previously dated The Notorious B.I.G.

According to Dame, Rivera approached him and “was talking about his s**t with Charli Baltimore and him and Jay was both with” her. Dame added that Jay told him weeks later that Rivera was bootlegging his album, but the mogul was convinced the incident had more to do with Baltimore, especially when, at the club, Rivera allegedly “got on his knees and said ‘Jay, I would never betray you.'”

“But to me I was like damn, n***a got on his knees. You don’t have to do nothing,” said Dame. “You know? That s**t was over a girl… And that wasn’t gangster to me either. That was all over a girl. And you know what was fucked up about it? Think about how life is. These n***as end up getting into this over Biggie’s girl. Both of his best friends. That was crazy. But again, no disrespect, that was crazy.”

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Dash went further, questioning the ethics of the situation and criticizing what he views as a violation of brotherhood: “If any of my friends f**k my wife or with one of my chicks when I’m not here, that’s fucked up. I don’t do that. That’s not real n***a s**t to me. You don’t f**k your man’s girl after he dies. That’s crazy to me. That’s insanity to me. You know the mob kills n***as for fucking with each other’s wives. But your brothers? Both of them? That’s why you don’t trust n***as.”

Dash is not the only person to say that the stabbing was related to a dispute over Baltimore. Cam’ron has made that claim for years, even mentioning it in a mid-aughts press conference and including it in his Hov diss track “You Gotta Love It.”

Jay-Z ultimately pleaded guilty to third-degree assault in 2001 and received three years’ probation for the Rivera stabbing. Charli Baltimore, meanwhile, went on to have her own career in hip-hop after her relationship with Biggie.

Rivera spoke about this incident during his appearance on VladTV in 2023, but claimed Jay was not the one who stabbed him. According to Rivera, if Jay stabbed him, there would have been much more dire consequences.

“Jay-Z was not the guy that actually stabbed me that night,” recalled Rivera. “I don’t know where people got Jay-Z stabbed me from because if anybody knows Jay-Z, Jay-Z’s a nice guy. He’s an artist. He’s a poet, He’s gifted and it’s never been his history […] If Jay-Z had stabbed me, y’all wouldn’t have got The Black Album because through my whole history, I’m an eye-for-an-eye type of guy.”

Despite never admitting he stabbed Rivera, Jay referenced the incident in his 2010 book Decoded and on the 2005 song “Dear Summer,” where he rapped, “N***as back up, they know I’m not no fronter/I don’t talk shit, I just flip it Un’ ya/Sorry Lance, I’m just trying to advance my quotes/I ain’t making you the butt of my jokes.”