We all remember the meeting between the rapper and billionaire Warren Buffet, from which the octogenarian came away impressed.
“Jay is teaching in a lot bigger classroom than I’ll ever teach in,” he said.
“For a young person growing up, he’s the guy to learn from.”
Less than 10 years later, the magazine surveys Shawn Carter’s empire — which spans music, a streaming service, liquor, art real estate and stakes in other companies — and determines that it “conservatively totals $1 billion.”
It also notes that he built his own brands: the Rocawear clothing line (sold for $204 million in 2007); D’Ussé, a cognac he co-owns with Bacardi; Tidal, the music-streaming service; and his multifaceted Roc Nation music and sports empire.
The artist’s primary holdings follow, which Forbes calculated by “looking at the artist’s stakes in companies like Armand de Brignac champagne — applying our customary discount to private firms — then added up his income, subtracting a healthy amount to account for a superstar lifestyle,” which were then vetted by “a roster of outside experts.”
Armand de Brignac champagne
$310 million
Cash and investments, including a stake in Uber worth an estimated $70 million
$220 million
D’Ussé cognac
$100 million
Tidal streaming service
$100 million
Roc Nation
$75 million
Music catalog
$75 million
Art collection
$70 million
Real estate
$50 million
Add it up … and that’s a cool billion. Needless to say, this doesn’t include the net worth of his other half, Beyonce, The couple has been worth more than a billion combined for quite some time now.
Of course, Jay’s claim as the first hip-hop billionaire could be contested by one Dr. Dre, who said he’d accomplished the feat way back in 2014 after his $3.2 billion deal with Apple.
Forbes said Dre jumped the gun though, and was only worth $800 million at the time.
PHOTO/COURTESY
