Berner is in the top five highest earners in music, and it’s thanks to legal weed

How did an indie rapper from The Bay end up among the kings of hip-hop like JAY-Z and Dr. Dre? Legal cannabis, and lots of fuss.

This week, former Forbes entertainment editor Zack O’Malley Greenberg crowned Hip Hop’s Money Kings of 2022, an annual list of top earners that began in 2006. The very first list was topped by JAY-Z, who reportedly made $34 million at the time. This year it reclaimed the top spot with a much higher figure ($1.5 billion), alongside devices from Forbes Diddy and Dr. Dre.

But one name on the 2022 list sticks out like a green thumb: cannabis mogul Cookies Berner, who rarely charts on Billboard, and said he wasn’t aiming for radio. That’s because Berner doesn’t owe his fortune to streams or stadium shows. He earned most of his legal bud half billy.

According to O’Malley Greenberg’s new report on hip-hop’s richest artists, rap’s top five earners are worth a combined $3.8 billion. Berner’s net worth is estimated at $410 million (just $10 million less than that magic number). The Cookies CEO said he once turned down an $800 million offer when the company started. Now, his estimated 30% stake in Cookies and combined with shares in dozens of other cannabis entities puts him among his musical idols when it comes to net worth.

How did Berner rise to the top of the weed industry?

Berner still remembers the days when people only knew him as an indie rapper. Before he came up with billion-dollar deals for Cookies, he was a local artist who loved weed so much he got a day job as a budtender. Then he meets Wiz Khalifa and signs with his label.

Things have developed organically since then. And to come full circle on the spliff, Berner was instrumental in helping Wiz launch the critically acclaimed Khalifa Kush brand in 2021, and Cookies remains KK’s exclusive supplier in Nevada and California. Other major partners include rap giant Rick Ross and retired NBA star Gary Payton, whose eponymous cultivar is a bestseller to this day.

“Cookies have passed me,” Berner said proudly when asked about his multistate operation on The Bootleg Kev Podcast last year. “People know what Cookies is and don’t know me. It’s incredible.

Without the mainstream platform of hit songs or airplay, Berner always found a way to corner the prized intersection of pot culture and pop at the highest level. Not even Curaleaf, the world’s largest cannabis company by market capitalization, can draw the lines or the hype that Cookies brings to every market it debuts in.

While Dr. Dre, Cypress Hill, and Wiz know exactly how to dominate the charts with bomb weed music, Berner has mastered the art of cultivating and distributing reviews that resonate with the most engaged users of industry.

Don’t sleep to Berner’s music, it’s more than a hustle

“I don’t want to be big. I don’t wanna be on the fucking radio, bro,” Berner explained in 2021. His success in legal weed, he said, now protects his creative freedom as an artist. Embracing the freedom, Berner added to his prolific catalog of music this week, releasing a new album titled OfSeeds for sale before Cookies’ big debut in the Mecca of Hip Hop, New York.

Last year Berner Gotti the album included previously unreleased sound from alleged New York crime boss John Gotti, courtesy of his family. It also featured rap legends like Rick Ross, Future, Jadakiss, and Styles P. Collaborations are a dream for any indie rapper, but they’re also key to Cookies’ marketing strategy. With many entertainers who consider themselves cannabis connoisseurs, the Cookies brand is both a status symbol and an impressive source.

“All my weed is cookies”

Lil Wayne, “You Only Live Twice”

Networking features in Berner’s final report on Spotify in 2021, with 8.2 million fans enjoying nearly 100 million streams from his prolific catalog. With over 40 independent albums and plans to drop new Cookies genetics through 2080, Berner still has a lot to teach the world about growing green on your own terms.

In the 2000s, the advent of streaming data legitimized rap’s place in popular culture, creating billionaires out of leaders like JAY-Z and Dr. Dre. Cannabis legalization now incorporates the plant in the same way, with the weed now ranking as the fifth most valuable crop in America, employing half a million people. And moguls like JAY and Diddy’s son Justin are scrambling to enter the legal weed business with their own distinctly branded products.

The Value of Cannabis Culture Legacy Platform

Berner’s cannabis family tree includes Yung LB (head of marketing for Leafly 2020 Strain of the YearRuntz), Wiz Khalifa (whose Khalifa Kush brand was originally backed by Berner) and former New York operators Harlem’s Branson and Luka Brazi, both of whom work closely with Berner to get licensed in The Big Apple.

With companies like Cookies U and partnerships with incumbents across the country, Berner is planting seeds that are expected to generate huge yields for decades to come. He could have cashed in years ago, if money was his only motivation. Instead, he kept control of his operation and used it to empower others, while pushing the industry’s creative boundaries at every turn.

Counting Cookies wins in 2022

Ad Age named Cookies one of the most popular brands of 2021 across all industries, making it the first cannabis brand to receive this honor. And 2022 was arguably Cookies’ best year yet. Berner covered Forbes, as the first cannabis owner to do so. And the Clio Awards even rewarded the pioneering marketing of the company.

Ahead of the New York store opening this Sunday, Cookies already cut the ribbon for a 10,000 square foot pharmacy in Beersheba, Israel in June. the brand also launched into new markets like Michigan, New Jersey and Florida, and continued its multinational expansion by entering Thailand.

According to O’Malley’s report, Cookies “sells 70 strains of weed and 2,000 different marijuana-related products through its 48 stores in seven countries and 20 states.” The brand is the basis of Berner’s fortune due to a unique business structure. The arrangement could one day see Berner “buy out local partners and create a unified, multi-billion dollar cannabis conglomerate,” according to O’Malley Greenberg.

“With legalization affecting more and more states — and perhaps the whole of the United States eventually — he is in a unique position,” O’Malley Greenberg said. “If it becomes federal and the market wants to see us with all these stores and this production, then we’ll roll them all,” Berner told O’Malley Greenberg earlier this year. “So we’re doing what these other companies are doing without having to raise our own capital.”

But Berner’s biggest win this year was with colon cancer. He was diagnosed last fall, but has since declared he is in remission and said he wanted to raise awareness about cancer while making medical resources more accessible.