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Comment by jaxytee | Hacker News Reader

Depending on the details of the deal, this may make Dr Dre hip hop's first billionaire.

It will make him close, but not there. I'm sure Diddy is no motivated to start some tech startup idea.

Curtis "50cent" Jackson seems to have followed in Dre's footsteps and now has his own headphone line http://smsby50.com/ . Wouldn't it be interesting if they were acquire by a Google/Microsoft/Amazon?

That would be funny, but I think that makes less sense than Apples move. I've heard a lot of speculation, but nobody really knows what Apple's plans are.

he owns something like 22% of the company. I read somewhere that this will bring him to approx $800m.

So it will become rather easy for him to become a billionaire if he invests it correctly. Pretty good for a guy from the streets of Compton.

If he didn't spend too much he should be a billionaire right now, see [1]. Money quote: "Forbes estimated his net worth at US$270 million in 2012."

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Dre#Income

When the rumour was $3.2bn he wasn't going to become a billionaire despite his video stating his was - so now the price has dropped he certainly isn't one.

Also - what does Beats have to do with his career in hip hop? Hip hop didn't make him almost $1bn, an electronics company he co-founded did. It just irks me every time I see 'hip hops first billionaire'. It has absolutely nothing to do with hip hop.

> It has absolutely nothing to do with hip hop.

His notoriety has everything to do with hip-hop, and his stake in the company has everything to do with his notoriety as a hip-hop artist.

Hip hop is his origin, therefore he is the first hip hop millionaire. Kind of like saying I'm the first billionaire from insert city.

Yeh I get that, but it's a music genre. It's like a web developer winning the lottery and being called the first Javascript millionaire. :) /s Sorry I totally get what you mean it just irks me for some reason and I can't help but comment regardless of the down votes.

Hip-Hop, love it or hate it, is a lot more than a music genre. It's an entire subculture that includes a significant proportion of the population, particularly the young.

ehhh i understand where you are coming from, i mean honestly there are multiple existing Hip Hop Billionaires. They are the owners of the record labels, radio stations, etc. Dre is really 'just' the first hip hop artist to make a billion. And from what is currently known, he wont really be a billionaire after the deal. really its just a case of hip hop bragadocio

> i mean honestly there are multiple existing Hip Hop Billionaires

Not according to Forbes[0] there aren't.

[0]-http://www.forbes.com/forbesfive/

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