This week, the music world was turned upside down when Residente released a song against the famous Colombian reggaeton player J Balvin. The Puerto Rican rapper launched a strong musical criticism towards Balvin: the success of the piece, produced by Bizarrap, has made it a number one trend on YouTube and has obtained almost 33 million views.
The problems between the two artists began last year when J Balvin denounced an alleged disrespect for urban artists because, supposedly, they only use them to have more viewers. Given this, he called for the award ceremony to be boycotted.
Residente showed his disagreement with Balvin’s words and assured that at that ceremony a tribute would be paid to Rubén Blades and that he, belonging to the urban genre, has won 31 Latin Grammys. The rapper also hinted that the reggaeton music is like a “hot dog cart”, alluding to the fact that his pieces, although famous, lack content.
Faced with criticism, the paisa musician posted a couple of photos on Instagram next to a hot dog stand in New York.
Regarding this news, the Marca Claro portal revealed which are some of the artists of the urban genre that have the highest net worth. According to his estimates, Daddy Yankee is in first place with a net worth of US$40 million.
Don Omar is in second place on the list, since he has a fortune of US$35 million, the product of his musical successes that began to make him visible in the industry since the last decade.
J Balvin himself, who is currently in the public eye, has a fortune of US$25 million. Other important artists of the genre such as Yandel, Wisin, Nicky Jam and Maluma will have assets close to US$20 million.
These profits come from different sources. One is the sale of physical records, which has been reinforced by the sale of digital units and audiences that use music apps such as YouTube, Apple Music or Spotify.
Tours and participation in festivals are two other key factors for the economic success of artists. Live music continues to be one of the main sources of income in the industry and the tours of urban artists are successes in sales.