Hip hop culture comes to town

'It is very rare that the CEO is this cool,' he laughs, once seated in a meeting room at his London PR headquarters. Certainly the 32-year-old is the most ostentatious chief executive you're likely to meet: a picture of overblown street style, he proudly sports a national debt's worth of gold chains and diamonds around his neck.

Dash has started coming to the UK once a month to raise the Roc brands' profile ahead of the company's move into the European clothing market in 2005. 'We definitely want to plant a seed here,' he says. 'London is where the opinion-leaders are, and if you take off here, you get the rest of Europe.'

The rolling launch will begin in the spring and his design team is currently tweaking Roc's assorted clothing lines to cater to European tastes. Gigantic US sizes are out in favour of slimmer fitting styles, and logos will be sized down to cater to our less in-your-face approach to fashion. A new European range is pencilled in for September, with the company conservatively anticipating sales of about $40m (£22m).

Rapid growth

These modest 'seed-planting' aims and expectations are indicative of a brand that is still coming to terms with its rapid success in the US over the past 10 years.

While in this country Dash is known for little more than having something to do with Victoria Beckham, in the US he has found himself at the centre of the hip hop economy, which is estimated to generate more than $10bn (£5.5bn) a year, a substantial chunk of which is controlled by self-made entrepreneurs such as Def Jam founder Russell Simmons and Sean 'P Diddy' Combs. They took advantage of corporate America's fear and ambivalence toward hip hop culture and are reaping the rewards.

Now it is possible to buy everything from a P Diddy-styled Lincoln Navigator to the less-than-wholesome-sounding Pimp Juice, a premium energy drink from chart-topping rapper Nelly.

'Big business still doesn't like to get involved,' says Dash, who began ten years ago, selling records from the boot of his car with business partner Jay-Z. 'Every company I've started has been because big business had failed to get involved. Hip hop culture has always about been about music, but now it's more about capitalising on every opportunity that presents itself. We wanted the best music, the best clothes and the best movies. We love to make money too - I love making cake.'

The Dash empire towers over the competition in the US with some 17 different brands, although exactly how much 'cake' Dash makes is difficult to establish: Roc is based on a Virgin-style model of partnerships, licensing deals and wholly owned entities.

The Rocawear apparel business, which competes with P Diddy's Sean John label for top urban brand status, turns over $300m (£165m) a year, although marketing vice-president Roy Edmondson won't reveal the profits. He claims Roc's other arms turn over about $50m (£27.5m), a figure set to expand with a raft of launches later in the year.

Roc Digital launches its sleek MP3 player range in October, with a tie-in planned with MSN's forthcoming digital music service, while Roc Films has 'something exciting happening with Warner Bros'. Next year's growth is forecast to be 15-20%.

'Damon is unconventional,' says Edmondson. 'The company's not built on a conventional business plan. It's built around someone's life.'

Single culture

Dash approves every design and is adamant that it all holds together.

'I'd never buy a business if it didn't make sense with the culture and I never make things I wouldn't buy,' he explains. 'I wouldn't exploit the brand and do a sneaker, because I wear Nike. I couldn't buy them - not yet. I can take a picture of all my brands and it will make sense: you're drinking Armadale, you've got the watch on, you're wearing my clothes and you're listening to the music. We package the cool lifestyle and sell it. We know exactly how the clothes or the sneakers should be made because we are of the culture. We help create it.'

Creating culture and selling it is what Dash excels at. The Roc meta-brand is held together by a ruthless cross-media promotion strategy that feeds off itself. The Roc-a-Fella record label's artists - including the acclaimed Kanye West - wear the clothes, drink the vodka and make sure they rap about the products for good measure. There are numerous spin-offs to be had from this, whether it's in making music videos or organising in-store shows where the acts perform, then handing out goods after.

Trying to sell all this to Europe's youth will be a challenge. Expect an all-star brand assault to hit the capital next year. 'London is kind of cool,' Dash says. 'I know if I'm accepted here I'm cool. I'm just planting seeds right now, but I'm waiting for those trees. I'm focused.'