Did Rap Get More Materialistic? Hard To Say, Fun To Ask.

When FORBES launched its first Hip-Hop Cash Kings list back in 2007, measuring the annual earnings of rap’s richest, the genre was already in the midst of some heady times, financially speaking.

That year, five of theten top-selling songs could be classified as hip-hop, Jay-Z sold his Rocawear brand for $204 million, and Kanye edged 50 Cent in a first week album sales showdown, 957,000 copies to 691,000. Yet lyrical mentions of the word “money” have only increased since then.

Does that have any...