Hip-hop mogul Jay-Z’s net worth soars to $2.5bn as value of his investments grows

Jay-Z, who became the world’s first billionaire rapper in 2019, has more than doubled his net worth to $2.5 billion as his sprawling business empire and investments continue to push his income higher, according to the latest data from the Forbes Real Time Billionaires index.

Despite a year without a tour or album release, the 24-time Grammy award winner, who is married to Beyonce, “mints millions” from his Armand de Brignac and D’Usse beverage brands, Forbes said.

Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, is the 1,210th-wealthiest person on the planet, it said. “Music is like stocks – there’s the hot thing of the moment” Jay-Z, 53, told Forbes in 2010. “People tend to make emotional decisions based on that. They don’t stick with what they know.”

An active investor, Jay-Z’s assets include entertainment company Roc Nation, which he founded in 2008.

He also founded US clothing brand Rocawear with Damon Dash in 1999, which they sold to Iconix Brand Group in 2007 for a reported $204 million.

“He maintains a small stake in [Rocawear] today and is involved in the brand’s marketing, development and licensing,” wealth tracker Celebrity Net Worth said.

Through his Marcy Venture Partners company, he was also an early investor in ride-sharing app Uber and has stakes in Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Swedish oat milk brand Oatly and non-fungible token marketplace Bitski.

In 2021, Jay-Z sold a 50 per cent stake of Armand de Brignac to luxury retailer LVMH at a $640 million valuation, Celebrity Net Worth said. He also sold music streaming service Tidal – which he bought for $56 million in 2015 – to Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s Square for $300 million.

Along with Beyonce, they coown a fine art collection worth about $150 million and a multimillion-dollar property portfolio, which includes a $26 million home in East Hampton, New York, an $88 million estate in Bel Air, California, and a $6.8 million penthouse in New York.

A significant portion of Jay-Z’s wealth stems from his music career, responsible for about 1 billion streams annually on the back of more than 41 million album sales.

Jay-Z and Beyonce were named pop music’s first billionaire couple in 2017, with Forbes estimating their combined net worth at $1.8 billion at the time.