There’s an obvious theme that pervades Forbes Magazine’s annual hip-hop list, “Cash Kings: The World’s Highest-Paid Hip-Hop Artists.” Successful entrepreneurial ventures are worth a lot more than great music.

Music sales were the predominant source of income for only four of the 20 artists on the list. Four of the top five earners, Diddy, Jay-Z, Dr. Dre and Birdman, are known more as great entrepreneurs than great musicians.

The list, based on income from June 2012 to June 2013, was published on Sept. 24 and remains one of the most popular articles on Forbes’ website, with more than 1,000 Twitter shares.

This popularity reflects our capitalistic impulse to use money to keep score. But among hip-hop artists, money is not just a way to keep score. It also determines popularity.

To be fair, on any list of the highest earners in an entertainment field, most would make the cut because of other ventures.

But, with other entertainers, business ventures never overshadow their artistic accomplishments. In hip-hop, when an artist becomes an established star, he is no longer a rapper. He becomes an entrepreneur who raps.

This is because hip-hop is a triumph of a fundamentally American ideal: that anyone, regardless of how they grew up, can make it here. Hip-hop’s stars have traditionally been underdogs from bad neighborhoods who grew up in poverty or close to it.

For this reason, their business success was as unlikely as their musical success, and is therefore celebrated just as much.

The entrepreneurial accomplishments of hip-hop’s biggest stars have also been nothing short of extraordinary. During the last 20 years, hip-hop stars have taken control of the business end of their genre and consistently established and re-established popular consumer trends.

They have started record labels to prevent businessmen from controlling their content and exploiting their underdog narrative. Now it’s the only musical genre where the biggest labels, like Jay-Z’s Roc-a-Fella Records and Dr. Dre’s Aftermath Entertainment, are operated by some of the biggest stars.

They’ve started apparel lines that brought their style to the mainstream. The immense popularity and ubiquity of hat stores, throwback sports apparel and hip brands like Sean John, Roc-a-Wear and Air Jordan is contingent on the hip-hop movement.

No group has achieved more influence than the foursome mentioned earlier. On their respective labels, Diddy, Jay-Z, Dr. Dre and Birdman have launched the careers of The Notorious BIG, Kanye West, Eminem and Lil’ Wayne, among others.

Young people drink Ciroc vodka because Diddy endorses it. Dr. Dre has taken over the headphone market with his robust “Beats by Dre” line. Sports stars like Kevin Durant and Robinson Cano have spurned traditional agents to sign with Jay-Z’s newly established Roc Nation Sports agency.

All four of these “Cash Kings” are well past their recording primes. Although Jay-Z is considerably the most popular, if you asked a casual fan, all four would be mentioned on hip-hop’s A-list before Wiz Khalifa, Kendrick Lamar and Macklemore, the three biggest young stars in hip-hop.

More than any individual, Jay-Z represents hip-hop’s ascension. He was a coke dealer who rose from nothing to become hip-hop’s biggest star. But now he’s an entrepreneur first and foremost. His music is indelible, but his story is an all-time triumph. I may as well be describing hip-hop as a whole.

In hip-hop, music has become a means to achieve and revel in the American dream. For hip-hop artists, as long as their story is a triumph, cash will always make them king.

Jarrad Saffren is a senior political science major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at jdsaffre@syr.edu.

Published on October 9, 2013 at 2:03 am