Less than four years after becoming rap’s first billionaire, Jay-Z has doubled his net worth and is now the last rapper standing on the illustrious world’s billionaires list.
According to Forbes, the Brooklyn vet is the 1,210th wealthiest person in the world with $2.5 billion. The figures puts him level with the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Donald Trump, and ahead of basketball legend Michael Jordan, who is worth a reported $2 billion.
The outlet reports the rapper, born Sean Carter has amassed his fortune “thanks to his lucrative liquor businesses” and “LVMH [purchasing] a 50% stake in his champagne empire Armand de Brignac, otherwise known as Ace of Spades.” His other assets range from a fine art collection including works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, his music catalog and shares in companies like Block and Uber.”
As we previously reported, Jay-Z was crowned hip-hop’s first billionaire in 2019, thanks to his sprawling investments in real estate, art, SpaceX, Sweetgreen, Uber, and more. His net worth jumped significantly to $1.4 billion in 2021 following the sell of his majority stake in music streaming company Tidal, and Armand de Brignac. The 53-year-old sold his majority stake in Tidal to former twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s mobile company Square for $297 million, a week after he sold half of his Armand de Brignac champagne to luxury brand LVMH’s Moët Hennessy for a massive $640 million
In a 2010 sit-down with Warren Buffett, nearly a decade before becoming a billionaire, Jay-Z revealed he approached his career with the goal of making money and rebuffed claims that rappers shouldn’t aspire to be rich.
“That was the greatest trick in music that people ever pulled off, to convince artists that you can’t be an artist and make money,” he told Forbes at the time. “Hip-hop from the beginning has always been aspirational. It always broke that notion that an artist can’t think about money as well.”
At the end of their conversation, Buffett proclaimed that young people would be running to Jay-Z for their money-making advice in the future.
“Jay is teaching in a lot bigger classroom than I’ll ever teach in,” Buffett said. “For a young person growing up he’s the guy to learn from.”
Dinner with Jay-Z?
