Coming into Hip-Hop, Drake’s story was as unlikely as any. He was a Canadian, Jewish former teenage actor who rapped and sung the other half of the time. It wasn’t exactly a recipe for success, but it worked out better than he could have even dreamed anyway. Since released So Far Gone and signing with Young Money in 2009, Drake has become a household name, and in his near-fifteen-year career, he has amassed a net worth of approximately $180 million.
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What Is Drake’s Net Worth?
Live Shows
Just like any artist, touring makes up the biggest piece of the pie for Drake when it comes to music anyway. It’s been a decade now of Drake’s live shows being some of the most in-demand in music. He toured his first album, Thank Me Later on the Away From Home Tour, 79 shows across 4 legs. He did $8 million at the box office there.
Drake hopped on the Club Paradise Tour for his sophomore effort, named after a loosie of his from that era, which fans consider a classic song. Opening for him was a who’s who in Hip-Hop at the time. J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar, A$AP Rocky, Meek Mill, 2 Chainz, and more were on the bill for at least one of the legs. Though he performed 14 fewer shows than his first headlining tour, he made 5x as much at the box office. He grossed $42.6 million.
Next up came Would You Like A Tour? The artist performed around the same as his previous tour at the box office. On that tour, he performed Nothing Was The Same in its entirety, and of course, on the album’s first single ‘Started From The Bottom,’ he raps, “now I’m on the road, half a million for a show.” Technically it lasted from 2013-2015, but in between, Drake went on tour with his mentor Lil Wayne for the Drake vs. Lil Wayne tour. Together, the pair did 31 shows with a back and forth setlist credited with being VERZUZ before VERZUZ.
For his next set of shows, Drake co-headlined with Future on the Summer Sixteen Tour. The two grossed a whopping $84.3 million across the 54 shows, with 6 shows being canceled due to an ankle injury from Drizzy.
The rapper’s next tour was smaller, just 43 shows outside of North America. As a result, he made $55 million at the box office from January to November 2017.
To tour his 2018 album Scorpion, Drake headed out on the Aubrey & The Three Migos Tour with the Atlanta trio. The pair grossed $100 million in 54 shows, a record for them to date.
Finally, the rapper took another trip overseas for Assassination Vacation. Around 285k people came to see him across the 23 shows, which put up $33.8 million at the box office.
Business Ventures
Live shows are great, but the rappers who appear most frequently at the top of Forbes lists – Diddy, JAY-Z, Dr. Dre, etc. – make the vast majority of their money outside of music. To achieve his financial aspirations, Drake has taken note and has an incredible business portfolio that consists of clothing lines, restaurants, and more.
His label OVO Sound was founded in 2012 and houses artists like PARTYNEXTDOOR, dvsn, Majid Jordan, Popcaan, and more. Along with the label under the October’s Very Own (OVO) brand is a line of merchandise that could be considered a clothing line for any other artist. Notably, the rapper also had a deal worth $20 million with Apple Music for OVO Sound Radio to be exclusive to Apple Music 1, which was called Beats 1 Radio at the time.
The rapper was also made the Global Ambassador for his favorite team, the Toronto Raptors, in 2013. There’s no word on what he was paid for the role, but on ‘0-100’, he rapped, “fuck all that ‘rap to pay your bills’ shit, yeah, I’m on some ‘Raptors pay my bills’ shit.”
One of Drake’s biggest ventures outside of the studio has been Virginia Black, his bourbon whiskey that made our best celebrity alcohol brands list.
Sponsorships
In terms of brands that have aligned themselves with the rapper over his career, Drake boasts some big names. Jordan has supported the rapper, as has Nike separately. Early on in his career, he also had a big deal with Sprite, which he bragged about on ‘The Resistance,’ rapping, “I avoided the coke game and went for Sprite instead, that’s word to the millions that they putting up.”
All in all, at 34, the rapper is already one of the richest on the planet and is set to enter the top tier with the likes of the billionaires if he continues down the path that he’s on.