If you’re like me you’re probably wondering why rapper Jay Z consistently ranks 1st on the list of top moneymakers in Hop Hop. Jay Z is 44 years old and hasn’t had a hit record since the Napster days. Yet he is consistently #1 on the moneymaker list?

The answer is probably that Jay Z knows how to suck up to the corporate suits whose hands rock the cradle of the business world. Corporate suits like billionaire Warren Buffet with whom Jigga shared that infamous cover of Forbes magazine recently.

Zack O’Malley Greenburg, a writer for Forbes magazine, tells MTV that Jay Z consistently outranks Sean “Diddy” Combs and 5 Cents because Jay has become the “gold standard” to which hip-hop artists aspire when it comes to mixing business and music.

“I’d put Diddy and Birdman up there too, but Jay is always at the top of the Cash Kings list because he makes brilliant business moves but keeps putting out relevant music,” he told MTV News. “Others [on the list] are more one or the other, but he keeps doing both.”

So you see kids, the Forbes money list really is a popularity contest rather than how much money a star actually has in his bank account. Besides, how would Forbes know exactly how much money these celebrities make?