Kendrick Lamar Leaps Ahead Of Drake On Forbes’ 2025 Highest-Paid Artists List

Although Kendrick Lamar and Drake will likely be enemies for the rest of eternity, they’re nonetheless fairly forward of the monetary competitors in hip-hop. But alas, considered one of them has to come back out on high. In 2025, that was Okay.Dot. Forbes lately put out their checklist of the highest-paid artists of the 12 months, and Kendrick claimed the spot because the top-earning rapper.

However, he’s fourth on the general checklist with $109 million. Ahead of him are The Weeknd at primary with $298 million, Taylor Swift with the silver medal due to $202 million, and Beyoncé boasting $149 million within the third spot. After the Compton lyricist, there’s Coldplay with $105 million, Shakira with $105 million as nicely, after which we get the 6ix God at quantity seven with $78 million. As you may count on, a lot of those numbers come from touring income, catalog offers, and extra.

As for Drake’s gargantuan streaming success, his streaming income is reportedly near $50 million. This estimate locations him because the artist with the second-highest-earning catalogue of the 12 months behind Taylor Swift, along with his live performance dates in 2025. Drizzy and his rival are the 2 highest-paid rappers of the 12 months, and for good cause.

Meanwhile, Kendrick Lamar’s “Grand National” tour alongside former label mate SZA (quantity 20 on Forbes‘ checklist) represents an enormous chunk of his 2025 earnings. The trek was extremely profitable, bringing in $358.7 million and breaking a number of information within the course of. Also, the late 2024 launch of the GNX album meant that 2025 nonetheless held a variety of industrial music success within the 12 months, and we won’t wait to see what occurs subsequent.

The similar goes for Drake, whose upcoming ICEMAN album is reaching a fever pitch of anticipation. While he has a variety of different issues to cope with like a civil RICO lawsuit over his Stake involvement and his UMG lawsuit’s enchantment over “Not Like Us,” he is an amazing multitasker.

Will 2026 crown a brand new rapper on Forbes‘ estimated monetary throne or will this binary proceed to dominate? At the top of the day, what followers will care about most is the music.