NIPSEY HUSSLE: $11 million
Nipsey’s prescient focus on retaining the rights to his music monetized his 1.85 billion streams, third-most of any act on our list, at a greater rate than most artists dead or alive.
Rapper Nipsey Hussle purchased in South Los Angeles. He started his own clothing store called the Marathon to emphasize his long-term outlook.
No. 10 on Forbes’ annual list of the top-earning dead celebrities, Hussle earned $11 million in the past 12 months, a bigger annual haul than in any year he was alive. In just the U.S., the Grammy nominated rapper clocked 1.8 billion streams over the past 12 months, and his prescient insistence on maintaining control of his master recordings means more cash per spin than most stars in this world or the next.