Lil Yachty's advent onEveryday Strugglecontinues to brand headlines.

Weeks later the Teenage Emotionsrapper'south meme-worthy face-off against Joe Budden, Yachty's name came up over again. This time, information technology was during segment with Joey Badass, in which they discussed whether Yachty's first-week album sales numbers of around 46,000 units indicated that he was a star. Budden stood firmly against ("You lot're non a mega-star when you sell forty,000 records—I'grand sorry," he said). Joey, on the other mitt, said that Yachty was a star, but admitted that "he may not be a star two years from now."

The CEO of Yachty's label Quality Control, Pierre Thomas, took outcome with the entire word. He commented on DJ Akademik's Instagram, writing, "Lil Yachty made 13 one thousand thousand dollars in 16 months. Who gives a fuck well-nigh y'all niggas opinion... And bye [sic] the way Yachty the reason your show popping so you should thank him."

Thomas' claim that Yachty put eight figures' worth of numbers on the lath since his career began taking off is bold. How could information technology have happened?

We reached out to Thomas for comment direct, but haven't heard back. And so nosotros decided to do a little dorsum-of-the-envelope math and investigate some of his probably big paydays. Note that without cooperation from QC, streaming services, or the companies Yachty does endorsement deals with, at that place is no way for this to be totally accurate. But, based on industry standards and public information, nosotros tin at least come up with a reasonable estimate as to how Yachty could have brought in that much dough.

First, let's remember what Thomas is claiming: that Yachty made $13 million in 16 months. That would take united states back to Feb of 2016, before the release of his debut mixtape, before "Broccoli," and right effectually the time he modeled for Yeezy.

Going by information on the site Bands in Town, we can encounter that Yachty has performed 119 shows over that period—26 this year, and 93 in 2016. This by March, Forbes reported that he was making effectually $100,000 a show (it should be noted, of grade, that guarantees tin can vary wildly, depending on the blazon of concert). Information technology'south highly unlikely he was making that much the whole fourth dimension—in the summertime of 2016, a more modest Yachty was, by his own admission, charging only $iii,500 for a guest verse—simply let'south be generous and assume he was pulling in that charge per unit for all of 2017. As of late 2016, he was charging $35K a gig, according to some sources. So let'due south over again give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that charge per unit for all of 2016.

Then, assuming those rates, Yachty would get almost $3.ii million for alive dates in 2016, and $2.iii million this twelvemonth. While we have no way of knowing his exact deal, an manufacture rule of thumb is that a headliner merely keeps about a third of the show revenue—the rest goes to expenses. So Yachty's $5-plus million haul ends upward netting him less than $2 million in accept-dwelling house pay.

That's not Yachty'due south only fashion of making money. Yachty has completed 27 invitee verses since he got in the game, per Discogs (note that this may miss some hyper-local artists or mixtapes—Yachty obsessives, let united states of america know!) At his stated $iii,500 rate, that'southward another $94,500—though his price has probable gone upwards considerably since that showtime Hot 97 interview.

There is also income from streaming. Using Spotify's numbers, considering they're easily attainable and information technology is by far the biggest streaming service, we can see that Lil Gunkhole gets HUGE numbers of streams. Calculation upward all of the plays from all of his solo songs, nosotros get almost 320 millionstreams. Because Spotify changes its payouts every calendar month co-ordinate to a closely-held complicated formula, it'south all simply impossible for us to figure out exactly how much money that translates into. However, we tin make an educated guess.

Digital Music News looked at ane band's payouts over well-nigh a two-and-a-half year period from tardily 2013 to early 2016, and discovered that the payouts averaged out to $0.004891. That's right—four-tenths of acentper stream. Then at those rates, Yachty's streams would go him around $1.5 million. Once more, the details—how much of that goes to labels, producers, artists sampled, co-writers, etc.—is not something we accept access to.

As of yet, Yachty has not had a solo breakout hit along the lines of "Broccoli"—a song which by itself has about 30 meg more Spotify streams than Lil Gunkhole's entire catalog. So if he gets a cut of that vocal, forth with payouts from Apple Music and other streaming services, we can assume that an additional big, possibly 7-effigy payday is on the way.

Then at that place'due south the other part of his career that Yachty is so proud of—endorsements. Ads with Sprite, Target, and Adidas each probably offer, according to experts we talked to, payouts in the depression six figures. His vesture deal with Nautica, considering it is more involved than but an advert (he is a "creative managing director" for the make), is likely to pay fifty-fifty more.

With all of these income streams, as well as others that we're missing, it's certainly possible that Yachty brought in the $13 1000000 that Thomas claims. Just is that what the rapper actually took domicile at the terminate of the mean solar day? Given his seeming uncertainty about the ins and outs of his ain record deal, and the fact that he has two companies to pay off (Quality Command is in a joint venture with Capitol), fifty-fifty Yachty himself may never know.