It is always said that you can become rich overnight, while wealth is acquired and the Forbes list of 2015 proves that. The 2015 Forbes five wealthiest hip hop artist list was revealed and includes the same five from last year.
Diddy wins again as he was named number one for the second year in a row now coming in at an astounding $735 million. Everyone knows his Ciroc deal by now, but Diddy also has a big stake in DeLeon tequila, Aquahydrate, and still involved with the clothing game with Sean John and Enyce. Revolt multimedia is just the icing on that cake as well.
Dr. Dre who claimed to be hip hop’s first billionaire is in second place with $700 million after paying up the 25% in taxes from that mega deal with Beats and Apple.
Jay-Z comes in at the third spot with $550 million. Tidal has not been the revolution in music streaming it has been marketed to be but it is still very early. Yet, Jay still has all the Roc Nation moves to keep him at a safe half a billion and of course there’s that famous wife of his too.
50 Cent is number four which moves him up over Birdman. 50 came in at $155 million and Birdman with $150 million. 50’s stake in SMS audio, Effen Vodka and Frigo underwear helped bump him up as he still is living large from the 2007 $100 million dollar deal with Vitamin Water. Birdman could take another hit if Lil Wayne gets his day in court and this list could look a little different next year. According to Forbes the list is calculated as such:
In order to complete the Forbes Five list, we follow the same procedures used to calculate our list of the world’s billionaires: valuing current holdings, looking at past earnings and talking to analysts, attorneys, managers, other industry players and even some of the moguls themselves to find out as many details as possible.
A lot of these rappers are playing catch-up as these are the usual suspects when this list comes out. The top three are a lock at this point for the foreseeable future. Rome was not built-in a day, hopefully other artists start making these type of business moves as it is always a good look to have your money in check.
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