Kanye West Passes Jay-Z and Drake As Highest-Paid Rapper For First Time Ever

Kanye’s popular Yeezy sneakers drove his historic feat, earning $1.5 billion in sales in 2019.

Zeynep Yenisey

Sep 20, 2019

Kanye West has landed the coveted top spot as the world’s highest-earning rapper on the Forbes 2019 list of the best-paid acts in hip-hop for the very first time.

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Last year, Jay-Z held the decadent title for highest paid hip-hop artist. The rap mogul has since been out-earned by his old friend Kanye, who jumped from 10th place with $27.5 million in 2018 to $150 million in pretax income.

West owes most of his success to his Yeezy sneakers which yielded over $1.5 billion in sales in 2019. He recently announced the 2020 Yeezy Foam Runner, which critics have ridiculed on social media for looking a lot like Crocs.

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Jay-Z ranks second on this year’s list and raked in $81 million–a little more than half of what Ye dumped in his bank account.

Jay-Z Champagne — Photo: Seth Browarnik/World Red Eye

In third place is Drake with $75 million, who is the most-streamed artist of any musical genre. He moved up one spot since last year.

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Cardi B, who clinched the number 13 spot on the list with $28 million, has some beef with the way Forbes crunches the numbers to come up with the ranking.

Where do Forbes be getting they numbers from cause they way off ?🧐

— Cardi B (@iamcardib) September 19, 2019

“Where do Forbes be getting they numbers from cause they way off ?” she tweeted, though it’s not exactly clear what she’s referring to.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B1pkvxJAUVl

Here’s the full list of the world’s 20 top-earning hip-hop stars:

1. Kanye West ($150 million)
2. Jay-Z ($81 million)
3. Drake ($75 million)
4. Diddy ($70 million)
5. Travis Scott ($58 million)
6. Eminem ($50 million)
7. DJ Khaled ($40 million)
8. Kendrick Lamar ($38.5 million)
9. Migos ($36 million)
10. Childish Gambino ($35 million)
11. J. Cole ($31 million)
12. Nicki Minaj ($29 million)
13. Cardi B ($28 million)
14. Swizz Beatz ($23 million)
15. Meek Mill ($21 million)
16. Birdman ($20 million)
17. Future ($19.5 million)
18. Nas ($19 million)
19. Wiz Khalifa ($18.5 million)
20. Pitbull ($18 million)