Sylvain Gaboury/FilmMagic; Jim Smeal/Ron Galella Collection via Getty ImagesDamon Dash has accused Sean “Diddy” Combs and The Notorious B.I.G. of copying him and JAY-Z’s lavish, mafioso-esque image during the early beginnings of their careers.During an appearance on entrepreneur and social commentator Patrick Bet-David’s PBD Podcast, Dash recalled his memories of hanging around Combs and The Notorious B.I.G. during the mid ’90s. The brash mogul revealed that The Notorious B.I.G. was one of his first smoking partners upon initially experimenting with marijuana at the time.“Big was the only person I used to smoke with,” Dash told Bet-David. “I didn’t smoke before at all; we used to drink. Supposedly, Jay and Big went to school together but Jay didn’t know him,” he said, referencing the two legendary lyricists’ time at Westinghouse High School during the late ’80s.

Ray Mickshaw/WireImageThe Harlem native admitted his belief that he and JAY-Z influenced Combs and Biggie’s style and sound due to their ostentatious lifestyle — despite not having comparable profiles within the music industry at that point.“Because we were getting the money and popping the bottles and all that, in that moment, we had always felt that Biggie and Puffy were copying us. They’d see us in the club and it seemed like the next day, a record would be made,” he said.

Dash continued, comparing his and JAY-Z’s history as wholesale drug merchants to Biggie’s experiences as a hand-to-hand crack dealer. “We was really getting money. No disrespect to Biggie but it was a different hustle. We weren’t on the streets pitching work. We were [about] connects, connects, connects,” he continued.

Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic“But that lifestyle of [a] hustler, that was us. That was them copying us, for sure. So we kinda had problems. I was run up [on] sometimes. I was confrontational with Biggie and them at first, but we finally got cool.”

Dash and Hov, and Combs and Biggie’s relationships blossomed while building a collaborative and personal chemistry with one another, particularly Biggie and JAY-Z, as both were natives and rated among the top emcees of that era.

In 1996, The Notorious B.I.G. appeared on JAY-Z’s debut album, Reasonable Doubt, on the song “Brooklyn’s Finest,” as well as in the music video for the hit single “Dead Presidents.” The following year, JAY-Z popped up on Big’s sophomore album, Life After Death, on “I Love The Dough,” and on Combs’ No Way Out album on the track “Young G’s,” which features a posthumous verse by Biggie.

See Damon Dash’s interview on PBD Podcast below.