Dame Dash...yet again

Stride Rite Corp. has reacquired the rights to the Pro-Keds brand from financially struggling hip-hop mogul Damon Dash.

The change for the iconic, 60-year-old shoe comes a week after Dash, who once boasted that he never wears the same socks twice, reportedly may lose two of his properties to foreclosure.

Lexington-based Stride Rite insisted Dash’s financial woes had nothing to do with the rebranding.

"It was just a matter of timing,” Stride Rite spokeswoman Debra Fernandes said yesterday. “We just wanted a new direction.”

Pro-Keds was launched in 1949 as a performance athletic shoe. By the 1970s, the round-toed sneaker was synonymous with some of the biggest names in professional sports - JoJo White and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar endorsed them.

The shoe also enjoyed a cult-like status in New York City’s early hip-hop community.

In 2004, Dash, co-founder of Roc-A-Fella Records, purchased Pro-Keds’ licensing rights from Stride Rite for an undisclosed amount.

The next year Dash left Roc-A-Fella, and since then several of his ventures have suffered. His reality TV show, “Ultimate Hustler,” lasted only one season, and his record label, Damon Dash Music Group, was shuttered.

Last week, New York newspapers reported that Dash and his wife, Rachel Roy, owe $7.3 million in payments on their mortgages for two Manhattan apartments.

Stride Rite - owned by Collective Brands Inc. of Topeka, Kan. - plans to kick off the new Pro-Keds line in November. Classic styles such as the Royal and Court King will be updated with new materials and colors. It also will launch limited-edition lines in a few months.