MP3 PLAYER WILL RIVAL APPLE IPOD
Saul Hansell, NYT

Music entrepreneur sets November debut
 
As the trading of MP3 files ate into music sales, Damon Dash, the 33-year-old entrepreneur behind Roc-A-Fella Records, turned his hip-hop music company into a platform to sell more profitable products.

He built Rocawear, a hip-hop-inspired clothing line, into a business with sales of $300 million a year. He started Armadale Vodka, Tiret New York luxury watches and America, an urban luxury fashion magazine. He even bought the venerable Pro-Keds name to use on a new line of athletic shoes.

Now Dash is applying his celebrity and music-infused marketing approach to a product line closer to the source of his troubles: MP3 files. In November, he will introduce a line of MP3 players under the name Rocbox, including one aimed squarely at competing with Apple Computer's iPod.

"We saw Apple making a killing, and we thought it would be a good market to go after," Dash said in an interview. The players, which are being sold by Roc Digital, a company he formed with partners, are a natural market, he said, because of possible tie-ins with his music label, which is part of the Island Def Jam Music Group of Universal Music Group, whose parent is Vivendi Universal.

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