Nobody Forgot About Dre! Rapper Beats Out Taylor Swift for Top Music Earner of Decade
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Following Dre in the No. 2 spot is Swift, who made a pretty penny on her own. The 30-year-old pop star’s decade’s worth of albums, partnerships and touring garnered her a whopping $825 million, according to Forbes, and she was 2019’s highest-paid celebrity.
Next in line is Beyoncé, 38, whose $685 million estimate proves she really does run the world. Her husband, JAY-Z, 50, sits comfortably at the No. 7 spot with $560 million.
The ranking doesn’t include earnings among the estates of deceased artists, but Forbes notes that if postmortem profits were accounted for, Michael Jackson would easily outdo everyone alive with a figure of $2.37 billion.
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Taylor Swift. JAMIE MCCARTHY/GETTY
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Taylor Swift’s Incredible 2019, from Top-Selling Albums to Blockbuster Movies
Up next for Dre is a collaboration with Kanye West. In November, the two announced that they are hard at work on a sequel to West’s most recent album, Jesus Is King.
Details are limited, as the hip-hop titans shared the news on social media with a picture of themselves posing in front of a recording desk, saying only that the project would be “coming soon.”
An advocate for artists’ stake in their own music and the monetization of their work, Swift is often vocal about ownership over her discography and unapologetic about her business smarts.
In an interview for British Vogue‘s January issue, the pop powerhouse opened up about how her career to date, spanning over a decade, has been partly shaped by her dedication to her work behind the scenes.
