T-Pain revealed the amount of money he rakes in from an hour of live streaming him playing video games. In a recent interview, the rapper mentioned that he makes $50,000 to $60,000 per hour from his time on Twitch. He opened up about the platform, detailing how the convenience and ease of live streaming caused him to think about how much more difficult it is to profit in the music industry, as most artists make the bulk of their money from going on the road and touring.
“When you making $50,000, $60,000 an hour playing video games in your drawers, it’s kind of hard to get me to go out the country for, you know what I’m saying?” T-Pain said. He went on to explain that he’s actually on the lower end of the payment scale, when compared to some of his rapper/streamer peers. He specifically referred to Detroit rapper Tee Grizzley's Twitch success in his explanation. "I’m on the low tier," he said. "This dude’s making millions a month," he explained. "I’m making less than Tee Grizzley. I know I’m making less. When we talk about hourly? I know I’m doing less than Tee Grizzley."
T-Pain Makes Tens Of Thousands Of Dollars Per Hour To Livestream
T-Pain elaborated on how his deals work, discussing the sponsorships and endorsements that come his way because of streaming. "When I get deals like 7-Eleven, they gave me $250k to play any game I wanted for two hours," he explained, before comparing the ease of a sponsored stream to the difficulty of performing music. "Just in certain intervals, just say, 'Hey guys, 7-Eleven has pizza now. Don’t you want a pizza from 7-Eleven? Cool, let’s get back to the game for two hours.' Easy money," he said. "If you think I’m about to go pack clothes, go get on a stage for an hour and a half, sweat it out in a state that I don’t know what the f*ck is going on before I stay in that room and just say, '7-Eleven has pizza,' and then go back to gaming?"
T-Pain’s explanation shows just how lucrative gaming and live streaming can be for celebrities. The previously mentioned Tee Grizzley also has a popular streaming channel and revenue that comes from things attached to that channel. Grizzley recently explained how he’s making millions a month from his Grand Theft Auto V role-playing server. A large part of that comes from membership fees from the 90,000 users who have joined the server he manages. As Twitch becomes an increasingly profitable outlet, more celebrities will join to have a steady side hustle. T-Pain can say he was one of the first successful crossovers into the space.
