Zack O'Malley Greenburg's Blog, page 85

Celeb 100 Long-Term Prospects: Monae, Rash And Wen

Janelle Monae: FORBES is watching.

The latest of the annual FORBES Celeb 100 list is out today, featuring some of the biggest names in entertainment. But who’s next?

Beyond the immediate batch of big-name up-and-comers who have an excellent chance of making next year’s list (think Lena Dunham, Rory McIlroy and Bradley Cooper), there’s a crop in the more distant future–and they’re already making their presence known throughout the entertainment world.

Here are three names we’re keeping an eye on:...

How To Make Toby Keith’s Favorite Sandwich

Toby Keith‘s restaurant chain, I Love This Bar And Grill, generates a significant chunk of his annual income–about $12 million of his $65 million in the past year, FORBES estimates.

The best-selling item? The fried bologna sandwich, Keith’s favorite. We traveled to Oklahoma to interview the King of Country and figure out the secrets behind his snack. See the video below.

Jay-Z and Kanye: Two Albums, Two Leaks, One Big Check

Kanye West and Jay-Z: One is not like the other.

Jay-Z’s new album won’t go platinum before its July 4 launch, nor is it guaranteed to debut atop the Billboard charts. You know you’re doing well as an artist when that’s considered a controversy.

Billboard announced earlier today that the 1 million copies of Jay-Z’s Magna Carta Holy Grail purchased by Samsung won’t count toward its chart totals. The reasoning: the technology giant will be distributing the album to owners of its handsets for free...

Diddy Talks Cable Deal; Will It Make Him A Billionaire?

Who wants to be a billionaire: Diddy?

“You started learning how to count right, I see,” explained Sean “Diddy” Combs to FORBES earlier today, likely referring to our latest estimate that placed his net worth at $580 million. “Thank God!”

But he was calling from France to talk about something else—a venture that could one day make him a billionaire—Revolt TV. Diddy is the network’s majority shareholder, and just announced a carriage deal with Time Warner Cable. That means his network will have o...

Mac Miller Returns To Forbes To Talk New Album, New Business

Mac Miller at Forbes, feeling like home.

The first time Mac Miller appeared at the Forbes building in New York, he was a teenaged newbie with a handful of mixtapes and a buzzworthy debut album. He returned this past week with accomplishments befitting a veteran.

Now 21, Miller has appeared two years in a row on the FORBES 30 Under 30 list, picked up 2 million more Twitter followers and earned $6.5 million last year. On the heels of his first album, Blue Slide Park–which sold 144,000 copies in i...

Jay-Z And Samsung Mull Music Streaming Service, But Is The Market Too Crowded?

Jay-Z: He's so streamy. But he'll have competition.

Jay-Z and Samsung are close to creating a music streaming service, according to reports that surfaced earlier this week. As usual, it appears that the rapper will be well-compensated for his efforts: the venture would be part of a deal worth as much as $20 million.

Any service the two parties create would likely serve in part as a vehicle for promoting acts signed to Jay-Z’s Roc Nation, not to mention his own music. Samsung already has a subsc...

Rapper’s Delight: Inside 50 Cent’s Car Collection

see photosSpencer Lowell

Click for full photo gallery: All Access: 50 Cent's Wheels

Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson’s love affair with automobiles got off to an inauspicious start. His first car nearly got him killed, and not because he was driving too fast. In the summer of 1994, at the age of 19, Jackson plunked down $53,000 in cash made from peddling drugs on the streets of New York for a charcoal gray Toyota Land Cruiser. He tricked it out with a rooftop bike rack, new wheels and a sound system wi...

The Diddy of Winemakers: Cross-Promotion For Civilians

David Hunt: The Diddy of winemakers.

David Hunt was almost a reality television star in the 1960s. At age 21, he was invited to California for a chance to appear on the television program The Dating Game, a precursor to programs like The Bachelor.

So he packed up his MG convertible, and with just $35 in cash and ambitions of becoming a musician, he headed west from his North Carolina home to seek fortune and fame. The latter eluded him—he didn’t end up getting picked to be on the show.

“I wouldn...

Ireland’s Big Eurovision Secret

Dustin the Turkey: Ireland's Eurovision 2008 entry.

If the U.S. has American Idol, The Voice andThe X Factor, the E.U. has the Eurovision Song Contest. First launched in 1956 as a means of uniting European countries after World War II, the latter has been running for longer than all three of the former, combined.

The entire continent is invited to watch the finale—a live concert where an act from each country performs one song—and vote for the best act via text message (in the old days, voters...

Michael Jackson Returns To The Stage In Vegas–As A Hologram

Michael Jackson: The hologram King of Pop.

It only seems fitting that Michael Jackson, the man who brought the world “Thriller,” was resurrected on a Las Vegas stage late Thursday night—in the form of a hologram.

The moment occurred toward the end of the first public performance of Michael Jackson ONE, a joint venture between Cirque du Soleil and Jackson’s estate. The singer’s apparition materialized from a cloud of gold pixie dust and proceeded to deliver a rousing rendition of “Man In The Mir...