Presumably the guy is distinctively not rich, or he wouldn't have gotten involved in such risky business to make money. Most of the hit songs he's been involved with are based one or more older songs, so he may not make much from royalties.

FTA:

> Adding to his woes, the government seized roughly $80 million from him.

That to me means that he was distinctively rich

> Presumably the guy is distinctively not rich, or he wouldn't have gotten involved in such risky business to make money.

The more I watch the behavior of the wealthy the more I see that either 1) there is never enough to satisfy them or 2) (more likely) getting it is the thing they enjoy — so why would they stop at some arbitrary point?

I think his wealth or lack of is orthogonal. The article in fact mentions his motivations being more along the lines of enjoying living on the edge, living dangerously (see his documentary work).

What I got from the article is that there's levels of rich, and always someone richer. Also, that a lot of stuff he felt in hindsight he should have paid attention to he dismissed as normal at the time because weird is normal in those circles, and stuff gets weirder as you get into richer circles, at least certain types of them. In other words, he didn't see it as risky business because risky means weird, and it's always weird business.

He was a member of the band The Fugees. Their album The Score sold 22,000,000 copies.

> We meet in his sparsely furnished 4,500-square-foot SoHo apartment with floor-to-ceiling views of lower Manhattan

I mean, can't be doing all _that_ badly.

People don't get involved in criminality, in general, out of desperation, but because they enjoy the lifestyle. Hence the hundreds of successful e.g. rappers who end up in prison (or dead) even long after they had far more than enough money that any sense of wanting was far behind them.