Dr. Dre is having a better week than you.
Almost immediately after news broke Thursday that Apple was closing in on a deal to buy headphone maker Beats Electronics for $3.2 billion, people started whispering about the possibility that Dr. Dre would become the first billionaire in hip hop as a result. Dre has close to a 25 percent stake in the company.
In a video posted on Instagram late Thursday night, the rapper appeared to confirm the deal and definitely, um, hinted at the billionaire thing. As his friend Tyrese Gibson exclaims: “They need to update the Forbes list!”
“The first billionaire in hip hop from the motherfucking West Coast,” Dr. Dre, whose real name is Andre Young, says in the video, “Believe it.” We sort of do!
The video has since been deleted from Instagram, but not before it was posted elsewhere. It's really fun, but there's a little NSFW language in there:
Dre co-founded Beats in 2008 with music mogul Jimmy Iovine. The company revolutionized the headphone industry and now accounts for a huge share of the market. It also recently launched a music streaming service.
Rappers touting themselves as billionaires is nothing new –- there are 293 results when you search the word on RapGenius –- but Dre may very likely be the real deal.
Still, it’s unclear how much Young would earn from the deal, which would be Apple’s largest-ever acquisition. Forbes, which published its 2014 list of billionaires in March, cast some doubt over whether this would propel Dre to a 10-figure net worth.
“A sale for $3.2 billion would nearly double the value of Dre’s holdings, though capital gains taxes could take a bite out of his big payday, likely leaving him in the neighborhood of $800 million,” Forbes staffer Zack O’Malley Greenburg wrote in a post early Friday morning. “It’s not quite enough to land on the Forbes 400, but it would easily make him hip-hop’s richest man.”
At the very least, he has conquered his hip hop rivals: Sean Combs, known as Diddy, is worth $700 million and now-third place millionaire Shawn Carter (aka Jay-Z) is valued at $520 million, according to Forbes.
That said, money isn't everything, and Jay-Z is married to Beyoncé, so don't worry about him too much.
UPDATE: May 12 -- Iovine is more likely to become the first "hip hop billionaire" if the Apple deal closes, Bloomberg reported on Monday, citing data it compiled. Dre will likely collect $640 million, according to the Bloomberg report.