Diddy Tops Forbes Hip-Hop Rich List

Forbes Magazine recently published their annual list of hip-hop’s biggest earners.

Sitting right at top of the ‘Forbes Five’ is rap mogul Diddy, valued at $550m. The magazine suggests that his business interests in Ciroc vodka and cable channel Revolt (which he owns outright) are the biggest earners towards his ever growing fortune, not of course forgetting his stakes in the Sean John and Enyce clothing lines, as well as the Blue Flame marketing firm, his Bad Boy record label and a number of tech startups.

Last year’s winner Jay-Z currently stands at $460m whilst legendary beat-maker and rapper Dr. Dre has an estimated fortune of $270m, doubling since last year thanks to the $300m cellphone maker HTC paid to buy a 51 percent stake in his Beats Electronic business. Birdman and 50 Cent sit at 4th and 5th place respectively with $125m and $110m.

Advertiser and Jay-Z associate Steve Stout, suggested that there’s still everything to play for in the race to hit the billion mark: “As much as it’s easy to say it’ll be Diddy or Jay, you don’t necessarily know, given what a guy like Kanye or will.i.am is capable of doing. In a world where people are creating applications that sell for a billion dollars, you never know who’s going to come out of leftfield.”