Every year we take a sneak peak at million dollar fortunes of the highest paid Aussie musicians, the world’s best paid DJs, and the rappers that actually have the bank balances they brag about in their rhymes.
Last year we also took a look at the highest paid musicians in 2013 all up, with highest honours going to Madonna who earned a cool $125 million. But Madge’s impressive 2013 takings have just been dwarfed in what Forbes is calling the highest amount an entertainer has ever earned since they’ve been calculating their rich lists.
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The finance publication has just dropped their list of the highest paid musicians in hip hop, and Dr Dre, who cofounded Beats with Jimmy Iovine and sold it for a cool $3 Billion to Apple is well on his way to becoming hip hop’s first billionaire.
To form this year’s Hip-Hop Cash Kings list, Forbes looked at income from touring, record sales, publishing, merchandise sales, endorsements and other ventures. Any business related fees such as those to management, agents and their lawyers have not been deducted. Earnings are calculated from June 2013 to June 2014 and based on data from Pollstar, the RIAA and Nielsen SoundScan, and from interviews with managers, lawyers, executives and some of the artists themselves.
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So just how much did Dr Dre earn this year? A cool pretax earnings of $620 million. Not only is that the highest annual total of any entertainer ever evaluated by Forbes, it’s more than the combined earnings of all 24 of his companions on the 2014 list. It also makes the $40 million he earned in 2013 looked like pocket change.
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“It’s safe to say headphones is a good business,” says DJ Khaled, who makes his debut at No. 20 with estimated earnings of $7 million.
Careful not to get vertigo as we descend to the No.2 spot on the list, which this year is shared by Diddy and Jay Z, who sit tied at $60 million a piece. Jay Z called out his money-boasting hip hop peers about lying about their net worth on his latest album Magna Carta Holy Grail.
Drake ranks fourth, with $33 million in earnings, helped by an arena tour and endorsement deal with Nike’s Jordan line that have tripled Drake’s 2013 earnings of $10.5 million
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Macklemore & Ryan Lewis round out the top five with a combined $32 million. The Seattle duo kicked off 2014 with a bang, winning four of the seven Grammy awards for which they were nominated—including Best New Artist and Best Rap Album for The Heist. That type of acclaim has translated to big bucks on the road, pushing the pair to more than triple last year’s $9 million take.
Combined the Top 10 hip hop earners pulled $916 million, a whopping increase over the $256 million they pulled last year.
To make the top 20, artists had to earn a cool $8 million this year, up from last year. There were plenty of big names in the rap world that earned millions over the past year, but didn’t quite make the $7 million cutoff for the Cash Kings list. Among them were Timbaland, Kid Cudi, Akon, A$AP Rocky, Common, Questlove, Nas and T.I.
The Highest Paid Hip-Hop Artists Of 2014
According to Forbes
1. Dr. Dre – $620 million
2. Jay Z – $60 million
2. Diddy – $60 million
4. Drake – $33 million
5. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – $32 million
6. Kanye West – $30 million
7. Birdman – $24 million
8. Lil Wayne – $23 million
9. Pharrell Williams – $22 million
10. Eminem – $18 million
11. Nicki Minaj ($14 million)
12. Wiz Khalifa ($13 million)
13. Pitbull ($12 million)
14. Snoop Dogg ($10 million)
15. Kendrick Lamar ($9 million)
16. Ludacris ($8 million)
16. Tech N9ne ($8 million)
16. Swizz Beatz ($8 million)
16. 50 Cent ($8 million)
20. Rick Ross ($7 million)
20. J. Cole ($7 million)
20. DJ Khaled ($7 million)
20. Lil Jon ($7 million)
20. Mac Miller ($7 million)
