Forbes - USA (2019-11-30)

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20

19.

TOP-EARNING

DEAD CELEBS

NOVEMBER 30, 20 19

It wasn’t Rodeo Drive. But rapper

Nipsey Hussle could look around at

the strip mall he’d purchased in South

Los Angeles—home to Baba Leo’s Fish

Shack, Steve’s Barbershop and a Boost

Mobile—and fall into a rhapsody about

the area’s potential. He earned his nom

de hip-hop selling socks, T-shirts and

other more illicit goods nearby. Now he

had a vision for redeveloping the plaza

and had started by opening his own

clothing store, calling it The Marathon

to emphasize his long-term outlook.

“We want to create enterprise

around the music,” the 33-year-old art-

ist explained in February 2019, seated

in one of the mall’s stores. “As passion-

ate as I am for music, I... have equal

passion for making sure that when the

music stops, the thing keeps going.”

Seven weeks later, Nipsey Hussle

was gunned down in front of The

Marathon. But things kept going. In

fact, they kept going so well that he

landed at No. 10 on our annual list of

the top-earning dead celebrities. All

told, Nipsey Hussle earned $11 mil-

lion in the past 12 months, a bigger

annual haul than in any year he was

alive. In just the U.S., the Grammy-

nominated rapper clocked 1.8 billion

streams over the past 12 months, and

his prescient insistence on maintaining

control of his master recordings means

more cash per spin than most stars

in this world or the next. In addition

to his music, there was his Marathon

income and a Puma partnership.

Nipsey Hussle could regularly haunt

this list if everything in South L.A. goes

according to plan—adding apartments,

plus a Nipsey Hussle museum per-

haps—and his heirs release what busi-

ness partner Steve Carless describes as

“hundreds of ideas” in the vault, from

hooks to verses to complete songs.

“Nipsey was never interested in

piecing together albums that didn’t

fit a certain level of continuity,” Car-

less says. “We’re going to be even

more meticulous about how we get

back to the masses, and how we keep

pushing forward his message.”

1. MICHAEL JACKSON
   $60 MILLION
   CAUSE OF DEATH:
   Overdose/homicide
   DIED: June 25, 2009


2. ELVIS PRESLEY
   $39 MILLION
   Heart attack
   August 16, 1977


3. CHARLES SCHULZ
   $38 MILLION
   Cancer
   February 12, 2000


4. ARNOLD PALMER
   $30 MILLION
   Heart disease
   September 25, 2016


5. BOB MARLEY
   $20 MILLION
   Cancer
   May 11, 1981


6. DR. SEUSS
   $19 MILLION
   Cancer
   September 24, 1991


7. JOHN LENNON
   $14 MILLION
   Homicide
   December 8, 1980


8. MARILYN MONROE
   $13 MILLION
   Overdose
   August 5, 1962


9. PRINCE
   $12 MILLION
   Overdose
   April 21, 2016


10. NIPSEY HUSSLE
    $11 MILLION
    Homicide
    March 31, 2019


11. XXXTENTACION
    $10 MILLION
    Homicide
    June 18, 2018


12. WHITNEY HOUSTON
    $9.5 MILLION
    Drowning
    February 11, 2012


13. GEORGE HARRISON
    $9 MILLION
    Cancer
    November 29, 2001