Afeni Shakur, mother of famous slain rapper 2Pac and now owner of her son's considerable estate sometimes struggles to keep former greedy associates and other aggressive business rivals astray. She complains wearily: "Rappers live in the moment. But one of the bad things about living in the moment is you don't do your paperwork". 2Pac, whose civil name was Tupac Amaru Shakur, had actually started two production companies (Euphanasia and Makaveli Records) shortly before his death. But his vision was nipped in the bud when he was murdered in September of 1996. He left no will, nor did he have time to legally consolidate the bulk of his creative work during his living. Still today, word is on the streets that he was owed a vast amount of money by his former producer Marion "Suge" Knight, owner of the now bankrupt Death Row Records label.

We will never know how swift 2Pac would have been at running his own wealth. But we do have a good example of how fast an ill-managed sudden fortune can evaporate in the person of Stanley Burrell, a.k.a. the infamous MC Hammer. Burrell's rhyming and dancing abilities took him to the top of the charts in 1987. Do you remember the infectious - but mind-numbing by today's standards - Feel My Power? Quite the entertainer type, Hammer was a fun chap to be around and his lifestyle was a permanent party. Apparently unable to tell buddies from mooches, he kept a huge entourage on his payroll. During the 8 years following his breakthrough, Hammer managed to blow tens of millions of dollars. Match his complete extravagance with plummeting record sales, poor critics and a vanishing "cool" factor, and you have a solid recipe for disaster. The party was over when he filed for bankruptcy early in 1996. Now how is that for a "riches to rags" tale?

So are rappers with fast money always cursed? That could not be further from the truth. You can bet none of these misfortunes will happen to Shawn Carter, better known from his recording studio moniker Jay-Z. Carter honed his trade as a rapper in the early nineties, building a reputation on the mic and battling crews in New York and New Jersey. He was still an obscure MC (Master of Ceremony) when both Shakur and Burrell already were national phenomena. Fast forward to 2008. More than a decade has passed and he is now a multimillionaire entrepreneur reigning at the helm of the Def Jam music label among other ventures. Unlike Shakur and Burrell, Carter did his paperwork and undeniably knows how to invest a buck.

The rap industry, born in the late seventies, is still a young trade. However its evolution from the very first underground block parties in Manhattan to the global infiltration of all mainstream media is astonishing. Likewise, the average profile of top-charting artists has considerably matured since Shakur's passing in 1996. From marginal and unpredictable, the artists have become influential businessmen. The rhyme-spitting recording studio rats have turned into full-grown entrepreneurs. As far as I know, none of our contemporary hip-hop heavyweights holds an MBA. Few have attended college or even graduated high-school. But from a purely financial point of view, I cannot help but observe that they certainly know how to manage their estate and grow their assets list.