Find out what options rappers have after their career is done!
The average rapper’s career is basically…...unsuccessful.
Just like any other creative industry, it’s hard to figure out what’s the average, or
really, the median salary for a rapper.
There are the rappers that aren’t famous, but they’re still able to book local gigs
where they live.
Then there are the world famous rappers who make more money in a year than most of us
will make in a lifetime!
But whatever the median salary a rapper makes from only rapping…....we’re willing to
bet it’s not a lot of money.
The Famous Rapper But what if you’re one of the lucky rappers
who have the skill AND the luck to have made hits and actually become famous?
There are countless rappers who’ve had a few hits.
Do you remember rappers such as Petey Pablo, Trick Daddy, Chamillionaire,or Chingy?
These guys were all legitimate hit rappers back in the day.
Especially Chingy!
He’s actually had THREE #1 hits on the Billboard charts!
Or what about Chamillionaire?
Just wait, we’ll be covering what he’s up to in just a bit!
But for whatever reason, the hits stop coming, the people stop coming to the shows, and next
thing you know, you’ve become a “What happened to that guy” person!
The Ultra Famous Rapper We’ll take Jay Z as an example.
Not everyone can have a career arc like Jay Z.
He’s been rapping since the mid-90s.
The reason for his longevity obviously is because he made great music.
That and also because he didn’t JUST rely on rapping for income.
Jay himself has said that he wasn’t really a rapper, he was just a hustler.
He just happened to know how to rap!
Jay Z didn’t just have a rap career.
He basically was a businessman who knew how to make money.
But that’s another story.
When you become as famous as Jay does and are constantly relevant, your career continues.
There’s always going to be an income stream because you’re famous!
Typical famous rapper career So if you’re not one of the few lucky rappers
that can make music for 15 plus years such as Jay Z, The Game, or T.I., what’s the
typical famous rapper's career look like?
Basically, there are a few different ways a career can go for a rapper.
There’s the classic career.
That’s basically make a bunch of hits, and then kind of fade into the sunset.
That’s because they have to sell music to a new generation.
One great example of this type of career would be Nelly.
He had a bunch of huge hits, in the early to mid 2000’s and then he just stopped making
new music around 2013.
The most common career arc for a famous rapper is basically to explode on the scene and then
kind of go away for one reason or another within a few years.
For example, do you remember Mike Jones?
Back in the mid-2000’s he had everyone listening to rap knowing exactly who he was.
Basically, he just repeated his own name as many times as he could in his hit songs as
a self promotion!
Another example is Soulja Boy.
He became a superstar with his #1 hit, Crank That.
He had a few more minor hits, buuuuut that was about it.
Today he’s still making music, and it seems like he’s trying to keep as relevant as
possible by saying crazy stuff during interviews.
So what DO exactly rappers do when no one wants their new music anymore and people stop
going to their shows?
Here are some more specific examples!
Reality TV One way to keep that cash flow coming in is
doing reality shows.
Flavor Flav was part of Public Enemy with Chuck D back in the 80s.
Really, he was just the hype man and he didn’t really rap that much in songs.
Even Rick Rubin was trying to figure out exactly what he did in Public Enemy because Rubin
wanted to sign Chuck D as a solo act.
But Chuck D insisted that Flavor Flav be signed as well.
After 12 years of touring and rapping went by, he went on the reality show, the Surreal
life.
He started a romance with Brigitte Nielsen whose pretty much the complete opposite of
him.
He’s around five seven, and she’s around six one.
They eventually had their own reality show, "Strange Love".
Then he had another show called "Flavor of Love”.
According to Flavor Flav, it was ideal employment.
He didn’t need a director and he didn’t need to rehearse!
Another rapper from way back went this route.
Vanilla Ice actually is still showing us how to…..flip houses?!
That’s right, Mr. Ice Ice baby has actually been doing this for more than 10 years now
with his show The Vanilla Ice project.
He’s been buying up houses ever since he became famous!
He’s even selling his own course on HOW to flip houses!
Startup Game
But there is a minority of rappers who saved their money.
And Chamillionare is one of them!
When you have a pile of money around, you’ll want to put that money to work!
Chamillionaire basically went from ridin’ dirty to angel investing in just a few years!
His investments included Maker Studios, which was acquired by Disney for $700 million dollars,
and Cruise, which was bought by General Motors for $1 BILLION dollars!
He also had the vision to invest in Ring, the video doorbell system which was recently
bought by Amazon.
However, he decided to also do his own startup called Convoz.
He wants Convoz to be an app where people talk face-to-face with celebrities.
But he also wants the app to be simple as someone finding a new friend with common interests.
He was inspired by twitter trolls to create an alternative to Twitter.
Convoz allows people to upload 15-second clips of themselves talking about whatever.
He wants people to be able to connect with celebrities in a more personal touch.
The celebs can then watch these videos and choose which ones they may want to respond
to.
His theory is that users will be less likely to bully or harass other people because everyone
is showing their faces.
However, a word of caution for all rappers out there, you can’t just put your name
behind a crappy startup product of your own and hope it sells.
That was basically what Soulja boy did with his Souljagame video game consoles.
The video game consoles were just rebranded versions of consoles you can buy for much
cheaper straight from the manufacturer!
Endorsements
Very famous rappers can also do what Ja Rule did.
He basically used his name to promote a new music festival!
You could make a case for Ja Rule that he was at one point, rap’s hottest rapper.
Well, until 50 Cent came along.
His music career then kinda faded into the sunset.
He kept on making music here and there, but most people just didn’t listen to what he
put out anymore.
He did have a recent hit song back in 2015, where he was on “Old Thing Back”.
That song was a remix done by DJ Matoma.
Ja Rule also went the usual route of acting.
Ja Rule has actually been in a BUNCH of random movies!
Did you know that Ja Rule was in Scary Movie 3?
Or that he was in the original Fast and the Furious?!
But, his most famous moments in his life after rapping are easily the ones he had with Billy
McFarland!
Before being a spokesperson for Fyre Festival, Ja Rule was already a spokesperson for McFarland’s
doomed venture with Magnises credit card.
That was a charge card targeted at Millennials.
Supposedly the card was able to get cardholders access into VIP events, clubs, and other exclusives.
Surprise!
That was a scam!
While Ja Rule was promoting the card, McFarland figured why not have him promote Fyre Festival
as well?!
You probably already know a lot about the Fyre Festival since it just happened recently,
so we won’t get too into it here.
The long and short of it is that artists never showed up, and Fyre Festival couldn’t deliver
on what was promised.
For what it’s worth, Ja Rule was never indicted for any crime, while Billy McFarland was sentenced
to 6 years in prison!
But really, the way to do it is to endorse an up and coming brand you actually believe
in that’s NOT a scam, just like 50 cent did.
50 made his first serious money in the business world with Vitamin water.
Instead of taking a flat fee for endorsing the water, he used his star power to negotiate
a percentage from the company.
Coca-cola went on to buy Vitamin water for 4 BILLION dollars, and 50 took home 100 million
from that deal!
That’s AFTER taxes.
Yeah, he was pretty much set for life, but 50 kept on grinding with various business
deals.
The truth is, plenty of rappers go broke and have to file for bankruptcy.
Find out all about rappers and their dumbest decisions in this video here!
The Big Screen
Ja Rule of course isn’t the only rapper to get into movies and films.
50 did much better than he did in this business as well.
These days 50 doesn’t really do much music anymore, because he’s busy writing and acting
in films and TV series.
For example, 50 was an executive producer and actor for the hit Starz series Power.
He also was in the hit film Den of Thieves.
Another example of a rapper turned movie star is Ice Cube.
He’s arguably THE best rapper turned actor.
Ice Cube has been in a BUNCH of classic movies, such as Boyz in the Hood, Higher Learning,
and CB4.
He’s one of the prime examples of a rapper successfully transitioning into an actor.
We also can’t forget about Ice-T. He can probably give Ice Cube a run for the money
as best rapper turned actor.
Okay, Will Smith is probably the best, but really, should we count Will Smith as a rapper
turned actor or the other way around?!
Ice-T has played a detective on Law and Order SVU since 2000.
In 2018, he also started hosting his own true crime documentary on the Oxygen network.
However, he’s also been in plenty of movies as well, such as New Jack City.
Other examples are T.I. in the movie ATL, and Ludacris in the Fast and the Furious franchise.
Going to the big screen is probably the easiest transition for a rapper in terms of using
their skill set.
Successful rappers are already entertainers.
Now we’re not saying being a great actor is easy, but just that it’s similar to what
a rapper has experience doing.
Fashion
It seems like every rapper eventually gets into fashion right?
The best example right now is Kanye with his Yeezy boost collaboration with Adidas.
He’s also still trying to get his Yeezy collection mainstream.
Arguably, Jay Z has done the best by starting Rocawear brand back in 1999 and growing it
to over 700 million dollars a year in sales at one point!
He later sold the rights to use the name for 204 million back in 2007.
This is a massive success for one of the greatest rappers of all time.
50 cent also came out with his own G-unit clothing brand back in 2003 in a joint partnership
with Marc Ecko.
They eventually sold over 100 million dollars worth of merchandise.
Another great example is Pharell with Billionaire Boys Club.
He started the brand back in 2003 and although it’s remained relatively small, it’s still
kept up its boutique status to this day.
However, for the majority of rappers, it doesn’t work out the way they want it to.
Jeezy came out with a clothing line called 8732 when he was still called Young Jeezy,
but that didn’t go anywhere.
DMX came out with the Earl Simmons Signature collection, which was supposed to be a higher
end brand, but it never caught on.
Nelly came out with Vokal and Apple Bottoms and had some moderate success, but the brands
are now both discontinued.
Lil Wayne came out with the brand trukfit to some success.
We can keep going, but you get the idea.
A clothing brand CAN pay off, but most likely it only works out for a superstar rapper.
Food and Beverage Going into the restaurant business is a tricky
and risky proposition.
But rappers still go into the business anyways.
Rick Ross decided to get into the wingstop franchise, basically because he loves wings.
That’s not the greatest decision to go into a business, but when you still have serious
star power, it can definitely give the brand a boost.
Rick Ross owns Wing Stops all over the southeast, and it’s taken off because of his name.
For Jay Z, this is one area he hasn’t exactly been successful in.
He’s had an up and down experience with his bar slash club, the 40/40 club.
He’s opened up different locations across the country, from Atlantic City to Las Vegas,
but both those locations shut down.
He also opened one up at Atlanta’s airport, and that location is still open but it’s
sort of just another bar that’s making modest money.
Southern rapper and Love and Hip Hop star Trick Daddy opened up his soul food restaurant,
Sunday’s Eatery, in late 2019 in Miami Gardens Florida.
In case you didn’t know, Trick Daddy was one of the rappers that put southern rap on
the map that lead the way for rappers such as Rick Ross.
After his career was over, he’s had a few money issues as he’s had to file bankruptcy
4 different times!
The good news for him is that his restaurant is still open in 2020.
His restaurant even has 4.5 stars on its yelp page!
What we recommend
So really, what should rappers do after their career is over?
Well, if they actually saved their money, then what they should be doing is to make
sure their nest egg keeps growing.
They need to just invest their money smartly in a diversified portfolio.
They can and should still take shots with random startups that’s going to fail the
majority of the time.
Because when those type of startups hit, they can have huge returns!
Just think how much more money Ice Cube would have if the Big 3 league continues taking
off?!
The rest of the time they should just be looking to protect their nest egg and just live off
the returns on their money.
But what about rappers who saved nothing?
If they actually blew all their money and essentially have to start over?
The best way is probably just keep in the spotlight as much as they still can and monetize
their fame.
Signing on to a reality show and getting paid for appearances is probably the easiest way
to still make money!
Watch this next video to learn about rappers who made the worst decisions!