Author: Peter Matthews
From Dolly Parton to Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger to Jay Z, the highest paid recording artists in the world have risen from mainly humble beginnings to conquer not only the charts, but the significant obstacles of their youth.
Canadian songstress Céline Dion grew up the youngest of fourteen children in a poverty stricken home, while Mariah Carey’s troubled upbringing as a mixed race child in Long Island has been long documented in the press.
Carey told The Observer back in 2002: “I suppose I saw what I didn’t want to have happen to me; I saw it as a little girl on a lot of levels and I wanted to rise above where I came from.
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“So that’s another reason why I made myself work twice as hard: if they’ll give me this I’ll work three times as hard, four times as hard.”
Indeed, none of the individuals on our list are strangers to hard work, with no obvious secret to their achievements other than a powerful combination of talent, timing and relentless graft.
Consistency has also been important for these ultra affluent performers, as has the ability to strike while the iron’s hot. The Beatles’ prolific songwriting duo Lennon and McCartney managed to write a hit album every year from 1964 to 1969 on top of their touring duties and other commitments, while Carey also wrote and recorded a US Number One single for eight consecutive years from 1993 to 2000.
Diversifying their interests has also played a key role in generating wealth and creating impressive portfolios. Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs was ahead of the curve in 1998 when he announced plans for his own urban clothing and fragrance brand, while fellow rapper Shawn Carter, aka Jay Z, recently launched a sports agency, with New York Yankees’ Robinson Canó as his first signing.
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Combs – the richest musician in hip hop – now even has his own marketing company, Blue Flame Agency, working with big name clients such as Diageo and Universal Pictures on top of his existing ventures in music publishing and reality television.
But out of all of these ultra-high-net-worth individuals, who exactly has come out on top? Wealth Insight, the leading source of high quality intelligence on global high net worth and ultra high net worth individuals, has carefully compiled a list of the world’s wealthiest musicians exclusively for Spear’s. Read on to discover a few expected entrants as well as a couple of big surprises…
