1. Webber became the richest musician in
history practicing one of its oldest forms:
musical theater. His ubiquitous works, which
include Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, and The
Phantom of the Opera, continue to bring in
bundles with theatrical stagings, soundtrack
recordings, and film adaptations. (It helps that
live theater has proven resistant to recent
economic challenges.) On top of all this,
Webber’s Really Useful Group, which he wisely
set up in 1977, profits from his works in any
form, incorporating ticketing agencies and
venues.


2. Paul McCartney: $800 million
Guinness lists McCartney as the most
successful composer and recording artist of all
time. In addition to royalties from the Beatles
back catalog, which tops the charts with each
reissue, he’s reported to own more than
25,000 other copyrights, and his post-Beatles
musical career has been huge, with Wings
selling 8 million-plus albums in the U.S. alone,
and “Mull of Kintyre” becoming the first song
to sell 2 million copies in the UK. His late wife
Linda, herself part of the Eastman fortune, left
him an inheritance of £200 million, and his
recent tour “Up and Coming” grossed $87
million.


3. Bono: $600 million
Paul Hewson is known as much for his global
diplomacy and forays into venture capital as
U2’s music. His investment in Facebook’s IPO
—via his Elevation Partners private equity firm
— didn’t make him a billionaire, but U2’s “360
Tour” grossed nearly $800 million between
2009 and 2011, making it the biggest tour
ever. (2005-06’s “Vertigo” tour is fifth on that
list.) Combine that with Bono’s many
investments (including private equity stakes,
a clothing line, and a five-star hotel), the fact
that the band owns all the rights to its own
music, and Bono’s Romney-esque tax-dodging
investment schemes, and the numbers add up
quickly.


4. Bing Crosby: $550 million
The man who sang “I Haven’t Time to Be A
Millionaire” was incredibly wealthy. Crosby
ranked among the 10 richest Americans in the
1930s—before he sang “White Christmas” and
became one of the biggest movie stars of the
‘40s. His Bing Crosby Enterprises was the first
pop artist entertainment empire, with
properties ranging from television stations to
Ampex magnetic tape technology to horse
tracks.


5. Sean “Diddy” Combs: $550 million
Sean Combs was first out of the gate in rap’s
nascent empire-building moment of the early
1990s, via Bad Boy Entertainment. With Sean
John, he developed a clothing line with appeal
beyond rap, to the tune of more than $100
million in annual profits. The music biz
accounts for only 20% of his revenue at this
point, with his attention most recently focused
on Ciroc Vodka and his own cable music
network.


6. Mariah Carey: $500 million
Carey’s been banking off that five-octave
range since Nicki Minaj was actually playing
with Barbies. Her stats are the stuff of legend:
an all-time record 18 #1 singles as a solo
artist, more than 200 million albums sold
worldwide, five Grammys, and the status as
the most wealthy living female musician. And
then, of course, there’s Idol.


7. Jay-Z: $475 million
So what if he doesn’t have the biggest stake in
the Brooklyn Nets. The record-setting solo
artist (12 #1 albums!) and erstwhile CEO of
Def Jam co-founded his Roc Nation
entertainment conglomerate with Live Nation
in 2008; co-authored Decoded, a bombastic
tribute to globetrotting excess in 2011; and
co-created the world’s luckiest baby the next
year.

8. Dolly Parton: $450 million
The woman who sang “9 to 5” is worth nearly
half a billion dollars, due to a tireless work
ethic (she’s written thousands of songs,
including “I Will Always Love You,” one of the
best-selling singles of all time) and a shrewd
awareness of how to market her cheerful
persona and simple-country-girl backstory.
She does primarily via Dollywood, a theme
park she bought and rebranded in 1986, and
which draws millions to its gates each year.

9. Jimmy Buffett: $400 million
Buffett has been drawing his faithful
Parrotheads and their battery-powered
margarita blenders to ampitheaters every
summer since 1976 via lucrative tours with
titles like “Last Mango in Paris,” “Beach House
on the Moon,” and “Summerzcool.” (2011’s
tour raked in $22 million). If you want an
ersatz version of the experience, you might
stop in at one of the many locations of
Buffett’s Cheeseburger In Paradise chain
restaurants, located off an interstate exit near
you. If you need a satirical primer for these
khaki-clad weekend pilgrims, check out 30
Rock’s “Crabcatchers” episode.


10. Michael Jackson: $350 million
At its peak, his empire was vast—he was
earning $50 million a year through the 1980s
and 1990s. In 1985, with one of the biggest-
selling albums ever (Thriller sales have been
inflated, but the 66 million copies were sold
worldwide), a series of incredibly lucrative
tours, and a record $5 million deal with Pepsi
(worth $11 million today), the questionable
investments started coming quickly. He
dropped $47.5 million to buy ATV Music ($101
million today), which included the Beatles’
catalog (which Paul McCartney would later buy
back at a bargain). In 1987, he bought the
“Neverland” ranch for $19.7 million and
invested another $35 million in it (a total of
$111 million today). By 2003, he held $200
million in debt, and even that wasn’t enough to break him.

I cannot find my Naija musicians; Psqr, D'bnj and 2face. Abi dem no follow?

Penssuwa: I cannot find my Naija musicians; Psqr, D'bnj and 2face. Abi dem no follow?

How na Bros, not even possible for them to be there ...