Jay-Z has officially become the first ever hip-hop billionaire after building an empire based on music, property, fashion and investments.

 

Jay-Z正式成为嘻哈界的第一位亿万富翁，他名下的商业帝国涉及音乐、房地产、时尚与投资。
 

 

Forbes magazine estimates that he owns wealth that "conservatively totals" $1bn.

 

Forbes attributes the successful wealth creation to an active building of brands by the rapper, rather than just endorsing¹ them.

 

Jay-Z rose to fame in 1996 with his debut² album Reasonable Doubt. His 2001 album The Blueprint³ was in March added to the Library of Congress' National Recording⁴ Registry because it was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically⁵ significant".

 

Forbes said it had estimated the rapper's wealth by adding various assets and then "subtracting a healthy amount to account for a superstar lifestyle".

 

Jay-Z was a drug dealer⁶ before venturing into music and launching his own record label, Roc-A-Fella Records. Since his first album in 1996, the rapper has managed 14 No. 1 albums, 22 Grammy awards and over $500 million in pretax earnings⁷ in a decade.

 

In a previous interview with Forbes, business mogul Warren Buffet⁸ said: "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."

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