Diddy named as the highest paid hip-hop artist in 2017.
Chance the Rapper and Lil Yachty are now among the highest-paid hip-hop stars on the planet. Forbes dropped their full ranking Wednesday, featuring a few surprises (Chance at No. 5 with $33 million, Yachty at No. 20 with $11 million) and one very sizable sum of cash in the top spot. Diddy, with pretax earnings of $130 million during the magazine’s ranking period, squashes the nearest competition by tens of millions of dollars.
The rest of the top three is also no surprise, with Drake closing in on $100 million and Jay Z topping $40 million. The Forbes ranking period ended in June, meaning we haven’t seen the full impact of Jay’s recent 10-year deal with Live Nation. Elsewhere on the list, Kendrick Lamar rides the Damn success to the tune of $30 million and Nicki Minaj—the only woman on the list—bags $16 million ahead of a new era that she promises will be her biggest and most impactful yet.
Diddy, who also topped the list in 2016, credits his continued entrepreneurial successes to a lesson he learned as a teenager. “I started my business career at age 12, delivering newspapers,” he told Forbes. After noticing that a lot of his customers were elderly, young Diddy decided to take the extra step of placing the paper behind the screen door. “Since then, I’ve always understood that if I give the customers my best and service them differently, whether music, clothing, or vodka, I’ll get a return on my hard work,” Diddy said.
Check out the rest of the top 10 below. For the full top 20 ranking and breakdown, hit up Forbes to compare the numbers with your current checking account balance.
Forbes Highest-Paid Hip-Hop Artist 2017
- Diddy – $130 million
- Drake – $94 million
- Jay Z – $42 million
- Dr. Dre – $34.5 million
- Chance the Rapper – $33 million
- Kendrick Lamar – $30 million
- Wiz Khalifa – $28 million
- Pitbull – $27 million
- DJ Khaled – $24 million
- Future – $23 million
