Yesterday Forbes reported Jay-Z has become Hip-Hop’s first billionaire. What wealth wisdom can you learn from Jay-Z?

Jay-Z’s father left him when he was 11 and died of over-drinking. At 12 he shot his older brother for stealing his jewellery. Then as a teenager Jay-Z's first career was dealing crack cocaine. With no record label supporting him, he sold his rap CDs out of the back of his car.

How did he turn such a tough start into a billion dollars?

And how did he do it with more than 90% of it coming outside of the music industry?

The big key to Jay-Z’s success has been “Co-created Assets” - where he partners with others and then owns the co-created brands.

While other rappers collaborate on songs, Jay-Z collaborates on entire businesses:

>> ROC-A-FELLA: $10 million - With no label taking him, Jay-Z’s first business in 1995 was started out of necessity: His own record label, with him being the only artist. He used this label to go on sell over 100 million records, collect 21 Grammy Awards and get the record for the most #1 albums for a solo artist on the Billboard 200. In 1997 he and his co-founders sold half the label to Def Jam Music Group for $1.5 million, then the other half in 2005 for $10 million - The other 99% of Jay-Z’s wealth has came from the following:

>> ROCAWEAR: $550 million - Jay-Z created Rocawear with his Roc-A-Fella co-founder Damon Dash in 1999 to build a fashion brand. He then bought out Damon in 2006 for $22 million and the next year sold the rights to the brand to Iconic Brands for $204 million, pocketed the 10x return while also keeping his ownership in the business. He then continued to help build Rocawear by create clothing collaborations with other music fashion brands, such as Pharrell William’s clothing brand, Billionaire Boys Club. Each collaboration makes far more money for far longer than a hit song.

>> ARMAND DE BRIGNAC: $310 million - In 2006, Cristal was the champagne of choice for Hip Hop stars. But when the MD of Cristal was asked by the Economist what he thought of the connection, he said “We can't forbid people from buying it. I'm sure Dom Pérignon or Krug would be delighted to have their business.” ...

So Jay-Z announced a full Cristal boycott and a few months later in his music video “Show me what you got” he rejected a bottle of Cristal for an unknown “Ace of Spades” bottle. Armand de Brignac (a small champagne producer in Chigny-les-Roses, France) only began producing its first Ace of Spades gold bottles a few months earlier. Jay-Z then bought the company and promoted the bottles. He has since made $310 million as others also shifted from Cristal to Ace of Spades.

>> ROC NATION: $75 million - With the rise of Youtube & music streaming,Jay-Z saw less people were buying music and more were buying concert tickets. So in 2008 he partnered with entertainment giant Live Nation to create “Roc Nation”: A combination of record label, talent agency, tour and concert company. He then got busy signing distribution partnerships with Sony Music, Warner Music, Universal Music and others - and then signed up artists from Kylie Minogue, Rita Ora and Demi Lovato to Rihanna, Kanye West and DJ Khaled. Jay-Z’s stake in the company is now worth $75 million.

>> D’USSE: $100 million - Seeing the success of his champagne, Jay-Z then partnered with Bacardi to co-create a new brand of Cognac, D’Usse. He visited the French Château of the same name in 2011, shaped the bottle and created the distribution partnership with Bacardi to repeat the Ace of Spades formula. Then, after the Grammy’s, he was seen drinking it straight from his trophy, and the brand took off. Today his stake in D’Usse is worth $100 million.

>> TIDAL: $100 million - Next, Jay-Z turned to tech. Seeing that Star power could rapidly grow the valuation of a tech company, he travelled to Norway and bought little-known music streaming company Tidal for $56 million. He then brought in Madonna, Rihanna, Kanye West, Daft Punk and his wife, Beyonce, and gave them all part ownership to help promote it. Three years later he sold 33% of the company to Sprint for $200 million, and his stake is now worth $100 million.

According to Forbes, Jay-Z has also made over $400 million more by reinvesting his profits into investments in real estate, art and businesses like Uber, where his $2 million of shares he bought in 2013 has become worth $70 million.

In all these examples, Jay-Z has used his No.1 talent as a musician and multiplied it many times over through his No.2 talent as a business builder. He says “I believe everyone in the world is born with genius-level talent. Apply yourself to whatever you’re genius at, and you can do anything in the world.”

What if you were to take your No.1 talent and multiply it with a No.2 talent to turn that effort into equity?

What if you were to do what Jay-Z did and co-create through partnerships?

Wherever he didn’t have the skill in production, execution or distribution, he simply partnered with those who did, co-created a new brand and kept part-ownership of the equity.

There’s nothing stopping you from doing the same.

> Cash partnerships may only last months.
> Profit partnerships may last years.
> But equity partnerships can last decades or a lifetime.

As Jay-Z sang: “I'm not a businessman, I'm a business, man"