How much is Ludacris worth?
| Net Worth: | $20 Million |
|---|---|
| Profession: | Professional Rapper |
| Date of Birth: | September 11, 1977 (age 45) |
| Country: | United States of America |
| Height: | 5 ft 8 in (1.73 m) |
About Ludacris
Christopher Brian Bridges, more commonly known as Ludacris, is a rapper and in recent years has successfully crossed over to acting, notably starring as the tech nerd Tej Parker in the Fast & Furious franchise. Ludacris’ first major role in a movie was in the sequel to The Fast And The Furious, 2 Fast 2 Furious, back when there was no intention to turn the series in to a huge bi-annual blockbuster event, and they were just crime movies with a focus on Japanese import vehicles and illegal street racing.
His character, Tej, was the owner of a car garage that doubled as a hideout for the main characters. Ludacris returned for the fifth installment of the series and has had a popular role in every movie since.
As the films have somewhat shifted to have a bigger focus on an ensemble cast with most actors sharing a lot of screen time. The character of Tej has mysteriously become more of a computer technician competing with the likes of the CIA in the recent movies, something of a feat for a sketchy guy running illegal and highly dangerous street races.
Because of his switch to movies, it is easy to forget that Ludacris’ musical career was extremely successful. Though Ludacris has taken what seems to be a hiatus from rapping, the now actor has a huge music career under his belt with nine albums, with the latest release being 2015’s Ludaversal, which charted in the top ten of the Billboard 200, peaking at number three. Ludacris had so much energy and released his first eight albums in the time it takes many artists to release three.
These eight albums were released in just nine years between 1999 – 2008. Except for his debut album, which had a low budget and released on his own label with little promotion, every single Ludacris album entered the top 10 on Billboard. And four of them even reached number one.
The Fast & Furious has become a billion dollar franchise, the whole series earning over $6 billion. Ever since its quasi reboot as a high octane action movie in Fast Five, the movies started bringing in a lot more money at the box office. Fast Five made double the amount of money than its predecessors and now every movie released makes well over a billion dollars, and it’s in part thanks to the treatment of the characters and bringing them all together, almost like an Avengers movie with cars. Thanks to the huge success of these movies, it is how Ludacris has accrued the majority of his wealth, despite not being the lead in any of the movies.
In 2002, Ludacris signed an endorsement deal with PepsiCo. However, Pepsi dropped Ludacris after the company apparently received a rush of complaints that they were working with rapper with questionable lyrics. Bill O’Reilly asked his viewers to boycott Pepsi because the company was working with the hip-hop artist, according to HuffPost.
Fortunately for Ludacris he was made whole. When Pepsi followed the cancelled campaign by hiring Ozzy Osbourne for a commercial, who is also known for the use of profanity and explicit lyrics, Ludacris was able to challenge PepsiCo. Eventually an agreement was reached that resulted in PepsiCo donating $3 million to Ludacris’ foundation and other inner city charities, according to Wikipedia.
Ludacris has a good few other ventures too, all of which have been financially successful. He created an ad campaign with Puma and even released limited edition sneakers with his record label logo scrawled across them. In 2016, he opened a restaurant named Chicken N Beer, which is named after the rapper’s fourth album, Chicken-N-Beer. The one restaurant location is currently in the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
Off the heels of the unprecedented success of the headphones brand Beats By Dre, Ludacris was opportunistic and jumped at the chance to work with Soul Electronics to create the headphone series, Soul By Ludacris. The series was successful and the headphones are still on sale today. Another successful venture is his own brand of liquor, Conjure Cognac, which has been selling for 10 years now and is still flying off shelves.
Ludacris starred in three Def Jam video games, a successful beat-em up franchise in which rappers are pit against each other. In 2019, he voiced a role in Show Dogs, the Will Arnett led vehicle, and though it only grossed $39.2 million in the worldwide box office, the movie had a budget of just $5.5 million, making it a big success for the studio.
He has his own record label. The label that distributed his debut album, Disturbing Tha Peace, is owned by Ludacris and it has subsequently been a subsidiary of Def Jam ever since. Though it doesn’t have many artists outside of Ludacris on its roster and the label has been stagnant since 2010, it has seen a huge success with its biggest selling non Ludacris record being the 2 Fast 2 Furious soundtrack.
Summing-Up
Ludacris has an estimated net worth of $20 million. By adapting to his surroundings throughout his career and shifting between rapping and acting he has become very successful.
Ludacris has found a comfortable way of living by working on a Fast & Furious movie every couple of years banking a couple of million in the process. Which is why he can afford an estimated $4.8 million dollar Hollywood home and a car collection full of Ferraris and Bentleys. He has a total of 10 cars, almost enough to call it a museum! His business ventures keep him busy in between his bi-annual shoots, and hopefully we haven’t heard the last of his musical career. He is reportedly recording his tenth album, the follow up to 2015’s Ludarversal, but that was last reported in 2017 and nothing has been said since. If we ever hear the new album is uncertain.
The next time we will see Ludacrics it’ll be in the theater watching the 10th entry of the Fast & Furious series, Fast & Furious 10. Expected to be released in 2023.
The F9 movie was delayed by a full year due to COVID-19 and was finally released in June 2021. Fortunately for the cast and producers it paid off banking $726M at the box officer on a $225 million budget. We are all looking forward to the Tenth Chapter in the Fast & Furious Saga (2023).
