The 20 Highest Paid Hip Hop Artists

This year's Forbes Top 20 Best Paid Hip Hop Stars list is here. Although there are few surprises on the list, the one thing that did stick out was how far the earnings at the bottom of the list were. As you probably surmised, Diddy, Jay Z, Dr. Dre and Nicki Manaj dominated again. Take a look.

1. Diddy ($50 million)
2. Jay Z ($43 million)
3. Dr. Dre ($40 million)
4. Nicki Manaj ($29 million)
5. Birdman ($21 million)
6. Kanye West ($20 million)
7. Lil Wayne ($16 million)
8. Wiz Khalifa ($14 million)
9. Ludacris ($12 million)
10. Pitbull ($11 million)
11. Drake ($10.5 million)
12. Snoop Lion ($10 million, tie)
12. Eminem ($10 million, tie)
14. Kendrick Lamar ($9 million, tie)
14. Pharrell Williams ($9 million, tie)
14. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis ($9 million, tie)
17. Swizz Beatz ($8.5 million)
18. Tech N9ne ($7.5 million)
19. 50 Cent ($7 million)
20. Lil Jon ($6 million, tie)

Read the article on Forbes for more details.

----------------------------------

Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

Women Singers Dominate Highest Paid Under 30

Forbes has recently posted their highest paid entertainers under 30 list, and it's probably no surprise that so many women make up the list. The interesting thing is that so many of them are singers. Here's how much person on the list made in the last year.

1. Taylor Swift - $57 million. Her concerts now bring in about a million a night.

2.  Justin Bieber - $55 million. He's also a venture capitalist, with investments in Spotify, Stamped and Tinychat.

3. Rihanna - $53 million. She gets big money from endorsements and sponsorships.

4. Lady Gaga - $52 million. But down from $90 mil last year.

5. Katy Perry - $45 million. Still hot even though her film bombed.

6. Adele - $35 million. 21 is still on the charts and going strong.

7. Kristen Stewart - $34.5 million. Film stars still do make money.

8. Lil Wayne - $27 million. The bulk of his income comes from live shows, earning about $600k per.

9. Taylor Lautner - $26.5 million. Twilight was bigger than we thought.

10. Robert Pattinson - $26.5 million. Again, Twilight was far bigger than we thought.

It should be no surprise that the audience for most of those on the list was teen and pre-teenage girls. What is a surprise is how much spendable cash they have.

-----------------------------------

Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.