Page 22 - Forbes - USA (November 2019)

Celebrities Cont.

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
20 Shack, Steve’s Barbershop and a Boost
Mobile—and fall into a rhapsody about
the area’s potential. He earned his nom TOP-EARNING
R
E de hip-hop selling socks, T-shirts and
N DEAD CELEBS
N other more illicit goods nearby. Now he
U had a vision for redeveloping the plaza
R
T and had started by opening his own 1. MICHAEL JACKSON
N $60 MILLION
O clothing store, calling it The Marathon CAUSE OF DEATH:
R to emphasize his long-term outlook. Overdose/homicide
F
“We want to create enterprise DIED: June 25, 2009
around the music,” the 33-year-old art- 2. ELVIS PRESLEY
$39 MILLION
ist explained in February 2019, seated
Heart attack
in one of the mall’s stores. “As passion- August 16, 1977
ate as I am for music, I . . . have equal 3. CHARLES SCHULZ
passion for making sure that when the $38 MILLION
Cancer
music stops, the thing keeps going.”
February 12, 2000
Seven weeks later, Nipsey Hussle 4. ARNOLD PALMER
was gunned down in front of The $30 MILLION
Marathon. But things kept going. In Heart disease
September 25, 2016
fact, they kept going so well that he
landed at No. 10 on our annual list of 5. BOB MARLEY
$20 MILLION
the top-earning dead celebrities. All Cancer
told, Nipsey Hussle earned $11 mil- May 11, 1981
lion in the past 12 months, a bigger 6. DR. SEUSS
annual haul than in any year he was $19 MILLION
Cancer
alive. In just the U.S., the Grammy- September 24, 1991
nominated rapper clocked 1.8 billion 7. JOHN LENNON
streams over the past 12 months, and $14 MILLION EDITED BY ZACK O’MALLEY GREENBURG; REPORTED BY KURT BADENHAUSEN, MADELINE BERG, HAYLEY CUCCINELLO AND ARIEL SHAPIRO. SOURCES: NIELSEN MUSIC; IMDB; INTERVIEWS WITH
his prescient insistence on maintaining Homicide
December 8, 1980
control of his master recordings means
more cash per spin than most stars 8. MARILYN MONROE
$13 MILLION
in this world or the next. In addition Overdose
to his music, there was his Marathon August 5, 1962
income and a Puma partnership. 9. PRINCE
$12 MILLION
Nipsey Hussle could regularly haunt Overdose
this list if everything in South L.A. goes April 21, 2016 INDUSTRY INSIDERS. FIGURES REPRESENT ESTIMATED PRETAX INCOME FROM OCTOBER 1, 2018, THROUGH OCTOBER 1, 2019.
according to plan—adding apartments, 10. NIPSEY HUSSLE
plus a Nipsey Hussle museum per- $11 MILLION
Homicide
haps—and his heirs release what busi- March 31, 2019
ness partner Steve Carless describes as 11. XXXTENTACION
“hundreds of ideas” in the vault, from $10 MILLION
hooks to verses to complete songs. Homicide
June 18, 2018
“Nipsey was never interested in
piecing together albums that didn’t 12. WHITNEY HOUSTON
$9.5 MILLION
fit a certain level of continuity,” Car- Drowning
less says. “We’re going to be even February 11, 2012
more meticulous about how we get 13. GEORGE HARRISON
$9 MILLION
back to the masses, and how we keep
Cancer
pushing forward his message.” November 29, 2001

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