What do Taylor Swift, Diddy and Lady Gaga have in common? Not much, musically speaking. But at this year’s Grammys they do—together they’re the three highest-paid nominees—Swift earned $80 million and Diddy pulled in $60 million, followed closely by Gaga at $59 million.
Making the best music doesn’t always translate to making the most money, though. Of the ten highest-paid musicians in the world, only the aforementioned trio earned nominations, and within that triumvirate, only Swift snagged more than one. Just ten of the 25 top earners industrywide received a nod, and only six of them claimed more than two. Though a Grammy victory isn't a foolproof indicator of musical excellence, its impact is undeniable.
“It puts another level of mystique on your brand,” rapper/producer David Banner once told FORBES, as he learned after he won in 2009 for his work on Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III.
Other big names on the list include Ed Sheeran, who earned $57 million--and four Grammy nominations, including Song of the Year and Record of the Year, both for “Thinking Out Loud.” Paul McCartney pulled in $51.5 million and two Grammy nods—both of them for rap-related categories, thanks to his collaborations with Kanye West.
Of the ten names in our rankings, four have been nominated for three or more Grammys: Swift (7), Drake (5), Sheeran (4) and Bruno Mars (3). Swift should be up for a particularly big night, as she’s up for three of the big four categories (Song of the Year, Record of the Year, Album of the Year). She certainly knows the benefit of a Grammy victory.
Swift won her first Grammy in 2010. In the following year, her average nightly gross surged from $125,000 to $600,000, a 380% increase; the year after, it jumped again, to $1.1 million. Similarly, Mars’ gross grew from $130,000 to $202,000--up 55%--in the year following his first Grammy glory.
“I don’t know where my music’s gonna go,” Mars told me when I interviewed him in Los Angeles during the weekend of his first win. “I have so much more to learn from producing, songwriting, performing. This is just the beginning.”
Indeed it was—he now has 20 nominations and a couple of golden gramophones under his belt, not to mention multiple Super Bowl halftime shows--and $40 million in earnings last year alone. That total puts him at No. 7 on our our list of the highest-paid Grammy nominees.
To form our rankings, we looked at the earnings from our 2015 Celebrity 100 list, which measures pretax income from June 2014-June 2015. The totals—formed with the help of numbers from Pollstar, Nielsen and RIAA—do not reflect additional expenses such as fees for managers, agents and lawyers.
The biggest story of this year’s Grammys, however, may be someone who wasn’t among the past year’s top moneymakers: Kendrick Lamar. The Los Angeles native earned $12 million in 12 months, bringing his career total close to $30 million—which still wouldn’t be enough to crack the top ten on this list. Yet he nabbed a near-record 11 nominations thanks to his opus, To Pimp A Butterfly.
With an arena tour in the works for 2016, Lamar’s earnings are set to spike. And if not, he’s probably fine with that, too. As he once told FORBES: “I rap because I know I serve a better purpose as far as making people feel good about themselves.”
For more on the business of music, check out my Jay Z biography, Empire State of Mind, as well as Michael Jackson, Inc. You can also follow me on Twitter, Facebook and by subscribing to my quarterly newsletter.
