Inside Beyoncé and Jay-Z's Billion Dollar Empire
by Rebecca Macatee | Tue., Sep. 4, 2018 3:00 AM
PictureGroup/Shutterstock
To describe Beyoncé and Jay-Z as rich is kind of like saying the ocean is big. Technically, it's accurate, but it doesn't even come close to conveying the scope of their wealth. That's because the Carters are more than just multimillionaires—they're bona fide billionaires, and their earning potential seems to be perpetually on the rise.
According to Forbes' estimates, Beyoncé and Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter's combined wealth passed the $1 billion mark in 2017. They were fast-approaching billionaire status in 2016, when together they were worth around $905 million. That number grew steadily over the next year, bringing the Carters' combined wealth to an estimated $1.16 billion in 2017 and $1.25 billion in 2018.
As Beyoncé puts it on her and Jay-Z's joint album Everything Is Love, "My great, great, grandchildren already rich"—and she's not kidding. The power couple, who are the proud parents to 6-year-old daughter Blue Ivy and 14-month-old twins Rumi and Sir, likely will remain in a position to fund future generations of the Carter family.
Photos
Beyoncé and Jay-Z's Date Nights
But Beyoncé, who turns 37 today, and hubby Jay-Z, 48, aren't saving all that hard-earned cash for someday. They own an $88 million Bel Air compound, a $26 million Hamptons mansion and a $40 million private jet. And they vacation like royalty, enjoying the Mediterranean aboard a $50 million yacht, sailing in Cannes and making "beautiful memories" all oveer Europe.
Of course, expenses that seem extravagant to us are closer to chump change for the Carters. And as Beyoncé and Jay-Z's empire continues to grow, so do their bank accounts.
As of 2018, Beyoncé alone was worth an estimated $355 million, while Jay-Z accounted for around $900 million of their collective $1.25 billion. Both superstars have proven to be exceptionally business savvy, but they've taken different approaches to making their millions (or hundreds of millions, we should say).
Curious how it all adds up? Here's a breakdown of how Beyoncé and Jay amassed their first billion dollars. Future moguls, take note!
Beyonce.com
Music Sales: For Jay and Bey both, the road to riches began with music. And while their identities as artists are an integral part of all their moneymaking ventures, what they earn from actual music sales only makes up a fraction of their fortune.
In 2016, for example, Beyoncé's Lemonade album sold 2.2 million copies, making it the third best-selling album in the U.S. behind Drake's Views and Adele's 25 (according to Billboard). These sales—along with royalties coming in from her other albums as a solo artist and a member of Destiny's Child—earned Beyoncé an estimated $4.3 million in 2016.
That number is nothing to scoff at, but according to Billboard's estimates, that $4.3 million in music sales only accounted for about 6.9 percent of Beyoncé's overall earnings for the year. We'll get to where the rest of Bey's riches comes from in a moment, but we should note first that Hova's beats don't account for the bulk of his earnings, either.
Let's look at 2017, when Jay-Z released his thirteenth studio album, 4:44. Sprint pre-purchased 1 million copies of the album, which were available as a free download for Tidal subscribers. These sales didn't count towards chart rankings, but 4:44 still debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, earning 262,000 album-equivalent units.
These sales—plus residual royalties from Jay-Z's previous albums—earned the rapper around $3 million in 2017, according to Billboard's estimates. And again, $3 million isn't an insignificant number by any means, but those album sales aren't what's bankrolling Jay-Z. In fact, according to Billboard's estimates, music sales alone only accounted for about 1.5 percent of the 19.8 million Jay made in 2017.
beyonce.com
Streaming: Music streaming services like Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music and yes, Tidal, have changed the way we listen to music and the way artists profit from it. Essentially, artists and songwriters receive royalties based on the number of times their content is streamed, but with the pre-Tidal streaming model, even big names like Beyoncé and Jay-Z were receiving paltry payouts.
Now with this, Jay-Z saw a business opportunity. As his famous lyric goes, "I'm not a businessman/ I'm a business, man"—and that means you've got to take some risks. So in 2015 for a reported $56 million, Jay purchased Aspiro, the Swedish parent company of Tidal.
Within a few months, Jay-Z relaunched Tidal as a premiere subscriber-only streaming platform. He did so with the help of several other "artist-owners" including Bey, Madonna, Rihanna, Kanye West, Alicia Keys, Nicki Minaj and Chris Martin.
Tidal pledged to offer top-quality sound and video to users, and by eliminating the free tier of membership, Jay-Z said Tidal was able to "pay the highest royalty percentage" to artists.
Tidal wasn't exactly the instant success the Carters were hoping for, but Jay and Bey kept riding the wave they created. On April 23, 2016, Beyoncé released Lemonade exclusively on Tidal to help drive subscribers to the streaming service; the visual album was available for purchase on iTunes and Amazon Music two days later, and two weeks after its initial release, Lemonade was available for sale at physical retailers.
She did not release the album to Tidal's streaming competitors—a fact she acknowledges in "Nice," the fourth song from her and Jay-Z's joint album Everything Is Love. As she sings it, "...[My] success can't be quantified/ If I gave two f--ks, two f--ks about streaming numbers/Would have put Lemonade up on Spotify."
Jason Miller/Getty Images
by Rebecca Macatee | Tue., Sep. 4, 2018 3:00 AM
PictureGroup/Shutterstock
To describe Beyoncé and Jay-Z as rich is kind of like saying the ocean is big. Technically, it's accurate, but it doesn't even come close to conveying the scope of their wealth. That's because the Carters are more than just multimillionaires—they're bona fide billionaires, and their earning potential seems to be perpetually on the rise.
According to Forbes' estimates, Beyoncé and Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter's combined wealth passed the $1 billion mark in 2017. They were fast-approaching billionaire status in 2016, when together they were worth around $905 million. That number grew steadily over the next year, bringing the Carters' combined wealth to an estimated $1.16 billion in 2017 and $1.25 billion in 2018.
As Beyoncé puts it on her and Jay-Z's joint album Everything Is Love, "My great, great, grandchildren already rich"—and she's not kidding. The power couple, who are the proud parents to 6-year-old daughter Blue Ivy and 14-month-old twins Rumi and Sir, likely will remain in a position to fund future generations of the Carter family.
Photos
Beyoncé and Jay-Z's Date Nights
But Beyoncé, who turns 37 today, and hubby Jay-Z, 48, aren't saving all that hard-earned cash for someday. They own an $88 million Bel Air compound, a $26 million Hamptons mansion and a $40 million private jet. And they vacation like royalty, enjoying the Mediterranean aboard a $50 million yacht, sailing in Cannes and making "beautiful memories" all oveer Europe.
Of course, expenses that seem extravagant to us are closer to chump change for the Carters. And as Beyoncé and Jay-Z's empire continues to grow, so do their bank accounts.
As of 2018, Beyoncé alone was worth an estimated $355 million, while Jay-Z accounted for around $900 million of their collective $1.25 billion. Both superstars have proven to be exceptionally business savvy, but they've taken different approaches to making their millions (or hundreds of millions, we should say).
Curious how it all adds up? Here's a breakdown of how Beyoncé and Jay amassed their first billion dollars. Future moguls, take note!
Beyonce.com
Music Sales: For Jay and Bey both, the road to riches began with music. And while their identities as artists are an integral part of all their moneymaking ventures, what they earn from actual music sales only makes up a fraction of their fortune.
In 2016, for example, Beyoncé's Lemonade album sold 2.2 million copies, making it the third best-selling album in the U.S. behind Drake's Views and Adele's 25 (according to Billboard). These sales—along with royalties coming in from her other albums as a solo artist and a member of Destiny's Child—earned Beyoncé an estimated $4.3 million in 2016.
That number is nothing to scoff at, but according to Billboard's estimates, that $4.3 million in music sales only accounted for about 6.9 percent of Beyoncé's overall earnings for the year. We'll get to where the rest of Bey's riches comes from in a moment, but we should note first that Hova's beats don't account for the bulk of his earnings, either.
Let's look at 2017, when Jay-Z released his thirteenth studio album, 4:44. Sprint pre-purchased 1 million copies of the album, which were available as a free download for Tidal subscribers. These sales didn't count towards chart rankings, but 4:44 still debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, earning 262,000 album-equivalent units.
These sales—plus residual royalties from Jay-Z's previous albums—earned the rapper around $3 million in 2017, according to Billboard's estimates. And again, $3 million isn't an insignificant number by any means, but those album sales aren't what's bankrolling Jay-Z. In fact, according to Billboard's estimates, music sales alone only accounted for about 1.5 percent of the 19.8 million Jay made in 2017.
beyonce.com
Streaming: Music streaming services like Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music and yes, Tidal, have changed the way we listen to music and the way artists profit from it. Essentially, artists and songwriters receive royalties based on the number of times their content is streamed, but with the pre-Tidal streaming model, even big names like Beyoncé and Jay-Z were receiving paltry payouts.
Now with this, Jay-Z saw a business opportunity. As his famous lyric goes, "I'm not a businessman/ I'm a business, man"—and that means you've got to take some risks. So in 2015 for a reported $56 million, Jay purchased Aspiro, the Swedish parent company of Tidal.
Within a few months, Jay-Z relaunched Tidal as a premiere subscriber-only streaming platform. He did so with the help of several other "artist-owners" including Bey, Madonna, Rihanna, Kanye West, Alicia Keys, Nicki Minaj and Chris Martin.
Tidal pledged to offer top-quality sound and video to users, and by eliminating the free tier of membership, Jay-Z said Tidal was able to "pay the highest royalty percentage" to artists.
Tidal wasn't exactly the instant success the Carters were hoping for, but Jay and Bey kept riding the wave they created. On April 23, 2016, Beyoncé released Lemonade exclusively on Tidal to help drive subscribers to the streaming service; the visual album was available for purchase on iTunes and Amazon Music two days later, and two weeks after its initial release, Lemonade was available for sale at physical retailers.
She did not release the album to Tidal's streaming competitors—a fact she acknowledges in "Nice," the fourth song from her and Jay-Z's joint album Everything Is Love. As she sings it, "...[My] success can't be quantified/ If I gave two f--ks, two f--ks about streaming numbers/Would have put Lemonade up on Spotify."
Jason Miller/Getty Images
