Diddy and 50 Cent
Forbes, an American publishing and media company, has released a list of Hiphop’s wealthiest artistes for 2012 with Diddy topping the chart with an estimated US$550 million.
Diddy is topping the list with Jay Z, Dr. Dre, Birdman and 50 Cent, making up the top five earners for this year.
Music and business mogul Jay Z, according to Forbes, is estimated to be worth US$460 million while Dr. Dre, Birdman and 50 Cent are worth US$270 million, US$125 million and US$110 million respectively.
Last year, Diddy was estimated to be worth US$475 million, amassing US$75 million more this year, while Jay Z added US$10 million to his last year’s estimated figure of US$450 million.
Zack O’Malley Greenburg of Forbes, in a video interview on Forbes’ website, disclosed that Diddy is “number one [far and] away ahead of everybody else because mainly of Ciroc.
He’s got this incredible deal backed by beverage giant Diagio. He gets huge cut of profits and is entitled to a split of the proceeds of any sale of the brand.”
Dr. Dre, he explained, has doubled his income from last year’s US$125 million, because of the “huge deal struck with HTC for his company, Beats by Dr. Dre. Now Dr. Dre’s headphones line, he owns about a third of it when the deal went down. He now owns half of that third. HTC paid US$300 million to get half of his company.”
Birdman, co-founder of Cash Money Records, in an interview with Zack Greenburg, refuted Forbes estimations, saying “to me I look at myself as worth a billion dollars more than what money can imagine but I never really put a tag on myself, I let other people do that, I never really try to value myself.”
Curtis Jackson, popularly known as 50 Cent, who is number five on the list, according to Forbes, did not rig in much, only adding US$10 million to his 2011 worth of US$100 million.
