I think it was Dame. Dame was the one brokering the deals, making the arrangements, fighting for his artists, signing artists, putting the label in positions to be successful, and lucrative. He was a shark at the time when you had to be a shark to survive in those waters. Dame's problem is that success is about perfect timing, and he was trying to duplicate what he had at Roc to no avail. He's also not Diddy, so it's not like he can go perform. Then you have all of the old-timers who had relationships with her are extinct.
Now, of course the climate of doing business has also changed and now you really don't need the sharks; mostly all of them have migrated out of the game. Jay-Z was the artist, but he's also a brand onto itself, so what did they need Dame for when Jay-Z in name alone is good enough? As a pure executive, I don't think Jay-Z was good at all. No one at IDJMG received any promotion for the entire stretch, and the handling of the Roc Nation artists hasn't been well either. I think that Jay-Z has a good business sense on handling his on career, mingling with the correct people and surrounding himself with people that would better his status and further his career. That does not mean that he knows how to personally run a business, which is not a bad thing. I do think that he has picked up enough things along the way to stay afloat though. LL said "Just because I can bake a cake does not mean that i am fit to run a bakery".
but he a hood nikka and "real" 