Kanye West Tops List of Forbes' Biggest Hip-Hop Earners For First Time

Kanye West (Everett Collection/Shutterstock)

Thanks to YEEZY, his athletic shoe company which topped $1.5 billion in sales last year -- about half of what NIKE's AIR JORDANS pulls in -- KANYE WEST has topped FORBES' annual list of the top earners in hip-hop, with an annual income of $150 million, easily topping his former mentor JAY-Z, who landed in second place with $81 million, followed by DRAKE ($75 million), DIDDY ($70 million) and TRAVIS SCOTT ($58 million) rounding out the Top 5.

EMINEM ($50m), DJ KHALED ($40m), KENDRICK LAMAR ($38.5m), MIGOS ($36m) and CHILDISH GAMBINO (DONALD GLOVER, $35m) completed the Top 10.

NICKI MINAJ (#12, $29m) and CARDI B (#13, $28m) were the highest-ranked females on the list.

FORBES indicated the Top 20 acts in hip-hop banked a combined $860 million, up 33% from $648 million last year. The bar for entry was $18 million, the highest ever. The numbers represent pretax income from JUNE 2018 to JUNE 2019 before deducting fees for agents, managers and lawyers; figures are based on data from NIELSEN MUSIC, POLLSTAR, BANDSINTOWN and interviews with experts, handlers and some of the stars themselves.

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