The College Dropout is officially a billionaire.
Last year, Kanye West was featured on the cover of Forbes, which delved into his lucrative Yeezy sneaker empire. At the time, the magazine didn’t declare West a billionaire in the issue. Reportedly, this did not sit well with the Chicago rapper, who blasted the publication on an industry panel back in November and in private, claiming that Forbes was “purposely snubbing” him due to him being a black man.
Further to West’s dismay, when Forbes released its annual billionaires list earlier this month, his name was absent. This was the final straw for Ye, who lashed out at the company in a text message to Forbes staffers.
“You know what you’re doing,” he texted. “You’re toying with me and I’m not finna lye [sic] down and take it anymore in Jesus name.”
On Thursday, West decided it was time to take matters into his own hands, ordering his team to provide Forbes with “what we feel is an authentic numeric look into Kanye, Inc” after months of requests for his financial records from Forbes.
“There’s only one number that West cares about. A billion, as in dollars. And he cares a lot,” the magazine writes.
Though contractually obligated to Adidas, West owns 100% of Yeezy. Based on the financial docs provided, Forbes estimates the final revenue number for the shoes is closer to $1.3 billion.
According to Forbes, West’s agreement allows him around an 11% royalty, which would put his Yeezy royalties over $140 million from last year.
However, West still wasn’t satisfied with his billionaire status of $1.3 billion, texting Forbes that it was actually triple that amount.
“It’s not a billion. It’s $3.3 billion since no one at Forbes knows how to count.”
Regardless of the exact amount, that is a big bag that West is bringing in. Congrats to Kanye!