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FRONTRUNNERJUNE 30, 20 19Nine years ago, two unlikely
lunch partners sat down
at the Hollywood Diner in
Omaha, Nebraska. One, Warren
Buff ett, was a regular there.
The other, Jay-Z, was not. The
billionaire and the rapper
ordered strawberry malts and
chatted amiably, continuing the
conversation back at Buff ett’s
Berkshire Hathaway offi ces.
Buff ett, then 80, walked away
impressed with the artist 40
years his junior: “Jay is teaching
in a lot bigger classroom than I’ll
ever teach in. For a young person
growing up, he’s the guy to learn from.”
This moment, which was originally captured in our 2010 Forbes
400 package, made it clear that Jay-Z already had a blueprint for
his own ten-fi gure fortune. “Hip-hop from the beginning has always
been aspirational,” he said. Less than a decade later, his $1 billion
kingdom encompasses liquor, art, real estate (homes in Los Angeles,
the Hamptons, Tribeca) and stakes in companies like Uber.
His journey is all the more impressive given its start: Brooklyn’s
notorious Marcy housing projects. He was a drug dealer before
becoming a musician, starting his own label, Roc-A-Fella Records,
to release his 1996 debut, Reasonable Doubt.
Since then, he’s amassed 14 No. 1 albums, 22 Grammy awards
and over $500 million in pretax earnings in a decade. Crucially, he
realized that he should build his own brands rather than promote
someone else’s: the clothing line Rocawear, started in 1999 (sold for
$204 million to Iconix in 2007); D’Ussé, a cognac he co-owns with
Bacardi; and Tidal, a music-streaming service.
Kasseem “Swizz Beatz” Dean, the superproducer behind some
of Jay-Z’s biggest hits (“On To The Next One,” Beyoncé’s “Upgrade
U”), looks at Jay-Z as something others can model. “It’s bigger than
hip-hop ... it’s the blueprint for our culture. A guy that looks like us,
sounds like us, loves us, made it to something that we always felt
that was above us.”
“If he’s a billionaire now, imagine what he’s about to be,” Swizz
Beatz says. “Because he’s only just starting.”New Billionaire Cont.The Richest Rappers
JUNE 30, 20 19INSIDE JAY-Z’S
FORTUNE$ 310 MIL
Armand de Brignac$ 100 MIL
D’Ussé$ 100 MIL
Tidal$ 150 MIL
cash & investments$ 75 MIL
music catalog$ 70 MIL
art collection$ 75 MIL
Roc Nation$ 50 MIL
property, net of
mortgages
TOTAL:$1 BILLION
$ 70 MIL
Uber- Jay-Z
$1 billion - Dr. Dre
$800m - Diddy
$740m - Kanye West
$240m - Drake
$150m
Elevator Pitch425 PARK AVENUE,
NEW YORKOpening: 2020
Floors: 47
Seconds: 38
Words Per Minute: 173
In the time it takes to ride
to the top of this Manhatt an
offi ce tower, David
Levinson—cofounder and
CEO of developer L&L
Holding—gives the pitch
that persuaded hedge fund
billionaire Ken Griffi n to rent
16 fl oors of it.“Park Avenue is the grand
boulevard of commerce in
America, perhaps in the
entire world. This is the fi rst
time in 50 years that anyone
has built a block-front offi ce
building on Park Avenue.
It is designed by one of the
greatest living architects
in the world, Norman
Foster. We will have the
No. 1 restaurant in the world,
by Eleven Madison Park chef
Daniel Humm. It has views
overlooking Central Park.
There are not columns in this
space. It is the healthiest,
most effi cient and secure
building that anyone ever
built in New York City. It sets
the tone for the twenty-fi rst
century.”Who will be the next hip-hop billionaire?