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How Future Streamed His Way To A $23 Million Year

This article is more than 6 years old.

2017 Getty Images

Atlanta's rap astronaut has landed his biggest ever annual paycheck. Digital streams sent Future's haul skyrocketing to $23 million--and the No. 10 spot on our annual Hip-Hop Cash Kings ranking of highest-paid rappers.

Thanks largely to money made through streaming, nearly half of that career-best payday comes from music, making his sonic salary second only to Drake (No 2; $94 million) among listmembers. Unlike the majority of Hip-Hop Cash Kings, who rely on hitting the road to bank big, Future's 70-odd live shows in our June 2016 through June 2017 scoring period composed just 30% of his total.

Future is among the artists heralding a new musical era in which rap rules streaming's burgeoning economy. Across genres, more than half of the top 15 musicians in total on-demand streams during our June 2016 through June 2017 scoring period were hip-hop acts; many of the rest are closely associated.

By capitalizing on listeners' voracious appetite online, Future has marked himself a streaming spearhead. In February, he defied the traditional break between album releases by putting out two records within a week of each other, scoring back-to-back No. 1 debuts. He became the first act in the history of the Billboard 200 to do so in successive weeks and the first to knock himself off the top of the albums chart since 1968.

“I get the chance to prove myself over and over, time and again, to not be a trendsetter but a trailblazer,” Future told Forbes in 2014.

His deep discography notched some 1.2 billion on-demand video streams during our scoring period making him the most-watched rapper in those 12 months; hits such as "Mask Off" have been viewed some 161.4 million times on YouTube. His 2.8 billion on-demand audio streams in the same time frame was bested only by Drake, who notched approximately 6.8 billion digital spins.

Streaming is how most people now consume music, and it's growing swiftly--up 76% year-over-year, according to Nielsen's 2016 report. Hip-hop remains the most popular streamed genre in the first half of 2017, accounting for a quarter of all online plays.

"The reason the Weeknds of the world and the Drakes of the world are exploding is a combination of a global audience that's consuming them freely at a young age [and that] they just keep dropping music," Live Nation chief Michael Rapino told Forbes for June's cover story on the new streaming economy. "They're delivering an ongoing, engaged dialogue with their fan base."

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Its payoff may sound meager: Musicians pocket just under a penny per on-demand stream, but billions of streams swiftly add up, as Future and Drake can attest. What's more, streaming services provide artists with invaluable data on where their fans are which makes monetizing on the road even easier.

Take Chance The Rapper (No. 5; $33 million), who premieres on the ranking without ever releasing a physical album. His Coloring Book streaming project, which was initially released exclusively on Apple Music in May 2016 in exchange for a $500,000 advance, propelled him to several million dollars in music earnings, two highly lucrative tours--and three Grammys.

Newcomer Lil Yachty (No. 20; $11 million) has swiftly cashed in on a young digital audience through an extensive touring schedule. The 20-year-old self-proclaimed bubblegum rapper played some 100 dates; Drake was the only Hip-Hop Cash King busier on the road than him during our scoring period.

For the music industry, streaming has become a silver bullet. In the first half of 2017, digital revenue accounted for $3.2 billion of the $4 billion total generated, according to the RIAA's 2017 mid-year report. The RIAA estimates that there could be as many as 1 trillion streams generated by the end of 2017.

And there is no better time for emerging artists to release music to rabid online audiences. This week, Cardi B's "Bodak Yellow" topped the charts, making her the first female rapper to do so since 1998, thanks to its slow-burn success on streaming platforms.

The future of hip-hop has arrived--and it is driven by digital.

METHODOLOGY

The Hip-Hop Cash Kings list tallies pretax income from touring, record sales, streaming, publishing, merchandise sales, endorsements and other business ventures. Fees for managers, agents and lawyers are not deducted. Earnings are calculated from June 2016 to June 2017 and based on data from Nielsen SoundScan, Pollstar, Songkick, Bandsintown and the RIAA, as well as interviews with inside sources and a handful of the artists themselves.

Full List: Hip-Hop Cash Kings 2017

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