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Jay-Z has been a household name for over 20 years.
He helped define the hip hop culture that has impacted and influenced millions of people around the world,
and he has inspired a number of other artists who are also trying to reach mogul status.
Jay-Z just became a billionaire in 2019, but it’s been a long and crazy road.
Today we’re going to tell you the story of how Jay-Z became the first billionaire rapper.
Shawn Carter overcame a difficult upbringing and a past as a drug dealer to become one of the biggest hip hop stars in history.
He released his first album in 1996 and has released 12 solo studio albums since.
He is widely recognized as one of the best-selling musicians of all time, having sold more than 100 million records.
He also holds the record for the most number-one albums by a solo artist on the US Billboard 200 with 14.
If that weren’t enough, he also has 21 Grammy awards in addition to numerous other awards and nominations.
Beyond his music career, Jay-Z has engaged in numerous business ventures, including Rocawear, Roc Nation Sports, the 40/40 Club sports bar chain,
his cigar line, music streaming service Tidal, and more.
His net worth surpassed one billion dollars in 2019, and this doesn’t even include his wife Beyonce’s net worth of $500 million.
It’s clear that Jay-Z is way past mogul status, but how did it all start?
Jay-Z grew up in a difficult neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, but since it was all he knew, he didn’t realize how dangerous it was until he got out.
He was devastated when his father left when he was 11 with no explanation, and one way he coped was by writing raps.
He would entertain his friends in the neighborhood with his raps, but he didn’t recognize it as a talent at first.
He dreamed of becoming a millionaire by the age of 30 but didn’t have any kind of plan.
He thought maybe basketball would be the key and never considered that he could have a career in hip hop because the rap scene wasn’t like it is today.
But his mom bought him a jukebox and encouraged him to develop his talents.
Shawn soon found that his songs were resonating with those in his neighborhood,
and he knew that if only he had a platform his music could speak to other people who could identify with him as well.
He thought a record company could be his bridge to reach other people.
He approached several major record labels, but nobody was willing to give him a chance.
When Jay-Z realized that nobody would be giving him a bridge, he decided he would make his own bridge.
This was just the start of Jay-Z’s journey.
Jay-Z knew he had a unique voice; he just needed to find his audience.
He wanted to succeed financially, but he also realized he had a special gift that would allow him to make an impact on many people if he could just find a platform.
When he was rejected by multiple record labels, he could have easily given up.
Instead, he continued believing in himself and developed a new vision for how he would move forward, but it certainly wasn’t easy.
Without a record deal, Jay-Z resorted to selling CDs out of his car, but that wasn’t his long-term plan.
In 1995, he created an independent record label called Roc-A-Fella Records along with his friends Damon “Dame” Dash and Kareem “Biggs” Burke.
The very next year he secured a distribution deal with Priority Records and released his first album, called Reasonable Doubt.
Although small circles of people were raving about the album, it failed to gain widespread recognition or a large number off sales.
This had a direct effect on how Jay-Z approached his second album, which was produced by Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs.
He made a conscious effort to try to make bigger records that would have more widespread popularity.
He copied the styles of some of the other artists at the time.
This ended up backfiring as his true fans felt he had sold out and lost his voice, and the songs he made didn’t resonate with new fans either.
Although it did sell more copies than his first album, it was far from the success he was envisioning.
But that big win was just around the corner.
From his previous failures, Jay-Z learned the vital lesson that if he was going to be successful, he had to be true to himself.
Instead of chasing success by trying to copy what other successful artists had done, he would be authentic and forge his own path.
He decided he would combine what worked from both of his first two albums to make a new album that people would connect with on multiple levels.
The result was an album called Vol. 2 Hard Knock Life, which still stands as Jay-Z’s most successful album.
It went 5 times platinum in the U.S. and has sold over five million copies.
This was the breakthrough album that Jay-Z had been hoping for, and he finally had the platform of his dreams.
Now 14 number one albums later, he has set the bar high for everyone in the hip hop game.
And in just 10 years he earned over $500 million from his music career.
But he wasn’t satisfied stopping there.
For Jay-Z, musical success was just the beginning.
His greatest financial successes have come from his investments and business ventures that have been supported by his music income.
He gives the metaphor
From the time he started his own record company, Jay-Z found entrepreneurship exciting.
He realized that it would be more lucrative to build his own brands rather than promoting someone else’s.
He started his clothing line Rocawear in 1999 and sold it in 2007 for $204 million.
In 2013 Jay-Z launched the Roc Nation entertainment company.
As part of this he launched his own sports agency called Roc Nation Sports and signed several big name athletes,
including Todd Gurley, Dez Bryant, JuJu Smith-Schuster, and Kevin Durant.
In the music segment of Roc Nation, he also represents numerous artists, including Rihanna, Shakira, Jaden Smith, and Mariah Carey.
Roc Nation is worth at least $70 million today. In 2014, he purchased the Armand de Brignac champagne brand, which sells for $300 a bottle.
This company is now worth more than $300 million.
He also created D’Usse cognac in a joint venture with Bacardi.
The revenue of this company has grown nearly 80% annually, and the brand is worth about $100 million.
Jay-Z also has an impressive investment portfolio with one of his more lucrative investments being a stake in Uber, which is now worth $70 million.
His total portfolio is valued at $220 million.
In 2015 he launched his Tidal music streaming service, which is also worth $100 million.
Unlike some other artists, he owns the publishing rights to his own music catalogue, which is worth about 75 million.
Add all this with his $70 million art collection and his $50 million real estate portfolio, and it’s easy to see why Jay-Z is worth over one billion dollars today.
On top of that, Jay-Z is only 49 years old, so he is nowhere near finished.
As he continues building his empire, he is constantly redefining what success means to him,
but one thing that doesn’t change is that he doesn’t follow the trends; he sets them.
There are several lessons that can be gleaned from Jay-Z’s success story.
One is that failure is a great teacher.
Jay-Z has said that he has learned far more from his failures than he ever learned from his successes.
And this positive attitude toward failure has helped him to push forward in the face of many obstacles and setbacks.
So when you encounter failure, if you can have the presence of mind to pull out the lessons from the experience,
you will be better prepared to move forward toward success.
For a more detailed look at Jay-Z’s journey, check out Empire State of Mind: How Jay-Z Went from Street Corner to Corner Office,
a book by Zach O’Malley Greenburg.
Every entrepreneur will be inspired by this incredible story of Jay’s rise to the top.
This book costs $21, but you can listen to it for free on Audible.
Just go to alux.com/freebook and sign up. If it's your first time you'll get the audiobook version for free, thanks to our partnership with Audible!
While researching his story, we’ve come across this incredible quote from Jay-Z we’d like to share with you that goes like this:
This is just a reminder that excellence should be the goal, Aluxers, rather than just short-term success.
Now that we’re wrapping up this story, we’d like to know:
Let us know what you think in the comments.
And, of course, for sticking with us until the end, what could that possibly mean?!
For his 41st birthday, Beyonce bought Jay-Z a 2 million dollar Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport,
which was the fastest street-legal supercar at the time with a top speed of 255 miles per hour.
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