Rick Ross Is The Chicken Boss

“I just love Wingstop,” says Ross, easing himself into a seat for his first-ever FORBES interview. “As you can see, the energy in here is always fun. It’s always youthful. Not only that, you know they got my favorite lemon pepper wings in the world, so it’s just a natural attraction.”

Ross has more than just a culinary interest in Wingstop—he’s the proud owner of nine franchises around the country, mostly in the southeast, closer to his hometown of Miami. That doesn’t stop Brooklynites from assuming this location is his, too.

“People come in here thinking he owns this all the time,” says DJ Diallo, the owner of this particular franchise, who appreciates Ross regardless. “He made Wingstop more popular.”

Wingstop is part of the reason Ross is one of Hip-Hop’s Cash Kings for the sixth year in a row. His poultry profits are far from paltry—somewhere in the low seven figures, by our estimates—and along with his touring income, recorded music sales and other ventures, they helped him rack up about $7 million in annual earnings.

“I just wanted it to be something,” says Ross of his Wingstop efforts. “The business just grew. It really grew. The community really came out, supported it, and showed us a lot of love.”

He’s hardly the first musician to try his hand in the food business. The list includes artists of all different genres, with some more successful than others. Jay Z’s 40/40 Club has been open for over a decade, but other locations haven’t enjoyed the same longevity (a Las Vegas outpost of was shuttered eight months after its New Year’s Eve 2007 opening).

On the other hand, Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar and Grill continues to expand its outlet count into the dozens. One of the keys to success, it seems, is a lack of culinary pretension. Keith, for example, insisted on adding his favorite dish—a fried bologna sandwich—to the menu.

“My peeps aren’t gonna come in from Texas or Florida or wherever into my bar and grill and look for pecan-crusted catfish,” he once explained.

For Ross, the formula for Wingstop is quite similar: focus on believable favorites. You won’t find the corpulent rapper shilling smoothies or other fancy fare; rather, his franchises sell the same lemon-pepper chicken he gleefully raps about. His enthusiasm for the dish is evident in person, too (he refused to let this writer leave without taking a few bites).

The journey to Wingstop moguldom began over a decade ago when Ross first developed his affinity for the chain, and really kicked into gear shortly after his career took off in 2006. The following year, he started to think of opening a franchise of his own.

“I began having those thoughts every time I pulled up to the restaurant,” he says. “Like, ‘Yo! This is something I need to do.’”

Of course, not just anyone can launch a fast food franchise. There’s a lengthy application process and financial background check of sorts. According to Diallo, owner of the Brooklyn location, one must be able to prove liquid assets of at least $600,000 in order to open a Wingstop.

The latter was easy enough for Ross, and by 2011 he’d opened his first outlet–near Memphis, Tennessee, where he now has five. Diallo says the average Wingstop does about $1.2 million in after-tax income per year. On margins of 15% or so, that leaves a little under $200,000 per franchise in annual profit.

Ross wouldn’t get into specifics on his Wingstops, but he does have some advantages over his fellow franchise owners. For one, he’s his own celebrity endorsement, which saves him marketing dollars and jacks up sales. He says some locations he’s taken over have seen spikes of over 50% in monthly revenue.

Being an owner has other benefits, too. For example, when an uproar over Ross’s lyrics lost him a partnership with Reebok, Ross never worried that he’d have to sever ties with his own Wingstop franchises.

Demand remains relatively high for his services as a pitchman, at least on something of a niche level—he also hawks Belaire Rosé and mCig electronic cigarettes. And his income, about which he sometimes disagrees with FORBES, also gets a major boost from touring and record sales: his latest album, Mastermind, debuted at No. 1 on the charts and sold 179,000 copies in its opening week.

Still, he has no plans to slow his Wingstop pace. How many will he have three years from now?

“I don’t even want to put a number on it,” he says. “It may surprise you.”

If the total is anywhere near the amount of lemon pepper wings Ross can consume on a steamy day in Brooklyn, he should be a lock for many Hip-Hop Cash Kings lists to come.

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