Despite being one of the greatest rappers and producers of his generation, Kanye West, or Ye as he has legally changed his name to, is almost as well-known for his occasionally erratic behavior, which is often exacerbated by his bipolar disorder struggles.
Examples of this behavior include his unsuccessful 2020 presidential run and his infamous interruption of Taylor Swift at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. In addition to keeping him in the public eye, his love life has also brought him publicity.
His ongoing divorce procedures with Kim Kardashian, his estranged wife, may bring his finances and life under closer scrutiny than they have ever been.
This is all we know about Kanye West's net worth and how he made his riches thus far.
He started off making $5,000 for a beat for Jermaine Dupri and eventually earned millions for his own tours and enormous sums for his Yeezy apparel line.
Ye previously had an estimated net worth of $2 billion. However, since the German-based company severed the deal, Forbes estimates his net worth to be $400 million, with his Yeezy brand with Adidas accounting for a sizable $1.5 billion of that total.
Forbes calculates that West's Yeezy collaboration with Adidas brought in up to $220 million a year. However, due to his overt antisemitism, there has been a pause since October 25, 2022.
“Adidas does not tolerate antisemitism and any other sort of hate speech. Ye’s recent comments and actions have been unacceptable, hateful and dangerous, and they violate the company’s values of diversity and inclusion, mutual respect and fairness,” Adidas said in a statement.
“After a thorough review, the company has taken the decision to terminate the partnership with Ye immediately, end production of Yeezy branded products and stop all payments to Ye and his companies. Adidas will stop the Adidas Yeezy business with immediate effect.”
According to Forbes, Yeezy and Adidas accounted for $1.5 billion of West's net worth. As of October 2022, Adidas let him go, therefore his income probably declined significantly.
According to the publication, his revenue from Adidas was comparable to the royalties that legendary musicians like Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan received from their back catalogues.
Originally, West was supposed to collaborate with Adidas until 2026. He began collaborating with the sports company in 2013. When he made overtly antisemitic comments and publicly denigrated the brand, his collaboration terminated four years early.
Forbes, which has access to Ye's financial records, claims that the rapper's Yeezy apparel line accounts for the majority of his net worth. The brand generated $1.3 billion in sales in 2020.
It's unclear how much West himself profited from the line, but estimates place it at roughly 11%, meaning his most recent earnings from the business came to a tidy $143 million.
West is reportedly worth a cool $90 million for his entire record collection, which includes his own albums, albums he has produced for other artists (including timeless hits like The Blueprint), and his G.O.O.D. Music label.
With $170 million in earnings, he was the highest-paid hip-hop artist in 2019 and the highest-paid musician worldwide in 2020. Although the amount he makes from each of his individual album sales is unknown to the general public, judging by the sales numbers, he probably did rather well there as well.
Spotify doesn't give artists much money per stream; the average for most artists is literally less than half of a cent ($0.00437), however certain labels and artists have negotiated higher rates of $0.0084, which is still less than a cent.
Nevertheless, West has enough streams on Spotify to continue earning a respectable sum: If we apply the $0.00437 estimate per stream to West's top ten most popular songs as of October 2021, he will still make almost $3,747,643. West made history in 2021 when ten of his studio albums achieved one billion streams on the streaming platform.
Much like most musicians, West's live concerts generate the majority of his music money. His tour grosses are even more impressive than those of his Yeezy models, and his gigs are almost always sold out.
While Jay-Z and Kanye West's Watch the Throne tour brought in $75.4 million between the two big-name headliners, West's Glow in the Dark tour brought in $30.8 million.
The Saint Pablo tour brought in $52.8 million and could have brought in more money, but he had to miss a number of shows due to a mental health issue and was hospitalized after his then-wife Kim Kardashian was robbed in Paris at gunpoint.