According to a list by popular hip hop website, hiphopdx. com. the top selling hip hop albums of early 2016 averaged 304,400 units with Kendrick Lamar’s Good Kid Maad City on top (746,000 units sold) and Trinidad James’ Don’t Be Safe selling the least (11,000).
Kanye West from The College Dropout Photocred: Complex. com
If we assume that a well-respected, mainstream rapper sells about 300,000 units on an album, and that an album costs anywhere from 8 to 20 dollars, we can say that a rapper makes between 2.4 6 million dollars in album sales. The only problem is that rappers rarely make 100% of the money that an album costs. Artists have contracts with their labels. In these contracts, artists usually agree to give up a large percentage of their money for the record label, the distributor, the manufacturer, the retailer, and all studio/production costs. Because of this, many artists end up making less than a dollar for every copy of the album sold.
Now let’s see how much this well respected, mainstream rapper makes from record sales:
This artist sells 300,000 units and sells his album for 10 dollars apiece.
His record deal gives him 6.6% on an album sale, which is the average percentage most artists make on an album (thanks to bandzoogle. com).
This means that the rapper will make 0.66 dollars for every album sold.
In total, he will make 198,000 dollars from his album sales.
This may seem like a lot of money but you must realize that artists still have to pay studio fees and pay their manager (who may demand up to 20% in commission).
All in all, this means my dad makes more money than certain rappers when comparing his annual revenue to only album sales. By the way, my dad is the director of marketing at an aerospace software firm. Still want to be rich by becoming a rapper?
