Who the hell told you that?? don't believe them monkies you see on their solid platinum leashes. The jewelry is rented and so is the cars. It's all for image so you think they're far more paid than they actually are. You know how many rappers are piss broke? Actually, I got a collab on a Nostra track about a topic a lot liek this.

But it's simple mathmatics.

Mainstream, First Contract: 10¢/ CD. Yup..no joke. Not even the BIGGEST of rappers is making more than 15¢/CD and that's with over 10 years in the game unless they own the label. Yeah, that's cents. Not Dollars. Lets say you go Gold...actually, lets overexagerate and say you go platinum on your first album (which is unheard of). That's 1,000,000 x .10 = $100,000 (gold would be $50,000).

Underground, First Contract: $5/CD Yup. Underground, going rate is $5/CD in hand. 10 if you own the label. Lets say you go Gold (which with proper distribution is realistic). 500,000 x 5.00 = $2,500,000. You just made literally 25 times the money with half the records sold. 50 times the money if you compare Gold against Gold. If you went platinum underground, that'd make you 5 million dollars of JUST the CD's.

Once agian, mainstreamers make NO money off rap it self. They make money off endorsements, advertising spots, commercials, doing call-signs, etc. whoring themselves. Their presence somewhere or on something. The only real money they'll see is on live gigs like concerts where they'll see 5k a show for a big venue on a first contract. Guys like Jig will see 50-75k. Maybe even 100 for a club venue at Speed or The Tunnel (when that was open). Jig will see a portion of ticket sales (which will pay better than a flat wad), and that's after 15 years of rap. On a ticket, he'll see 3 dollars tops, PER ticket and remember he's a big-dog in rap. Now check this..

Lets say Jig sold out Madison Square Garden to full capacity(which he did). MSG seats a little under 20,000 people. Now here's the math:

20,000 x $3 = $60,000. Jig made 60k form selling out madison square garden on cheap $20 seats. At 6 bucks/ticket on a $50-100 dollar ticket, he'd rake in 75k tops. That means that any underground head that went gold made more money than Jay-Z did on selling out the world famous Madison Square Garden. Seems strange, but it's true.

Split for profitability for an undergorund emcee's career is along the liens of:

CD: 60%
Live: 25%
Endorsements: 10%-15%
Other: 5% (underground mixtapes, pirate radio spots, magazine covers, etc)


Mainstreamer is more like:
CD: 2%
Live: 45%
Endorsements: 35% (though could be far higher depending on success of alternate things liek clothes, alchohol, and other material things)
Other: 18% (radio spots, callsigns, magazine covers, etc)

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