How Lil Skies Achieved a Net Worth of $3 million

Kimetrius Foose, better known as Lil Skies, has come a long way into being the rapper that he is today. Being around a father who was also in the music industry made it easy for him to become an artist. Although he has only recently taken the industry by storm with his rap, Lil Skies started his career as a child but has been patient enough to see it come to fruition.

Patience indeed pays, and the rapper has accumulated a net worth of $3 million which is bound to increase as he focuses on his next projects. Let’s check out how Lil Skies’ net worth grew to such an impressive amount.

Turning music into a career as a child

With a father who was trying to make it in the hip hop music industry, Lil Skies knew from an early age that he also wanted to be a musician. Despite being good at school and getting straight A’s that made him a lady-magnet, he never wanted to pursue other professions. All the rapper knew was that he was good at music, and he would be successful because nothing else compared to the feeling he got when performing.

That being said, by the age of four, he had recorded his first song. By then, he did not even know the stage name he would use but the girls who hang out with his dad, Dark Skies, used to call Kimetrius “Lil Skies.”

He decided to use it, and it has stuck, though he might change it to Big Skies because as he told Fuse TV in May 2019, once his son was born Lil Skies would be taken up by his son. Seeing that his son was already born in October 2019, the rapper might soon be known as Big Skies.

By the age of 10, Lil Skies was making money from his music by creating mixtapes and selling them in school. He was passionate about his work, so he made 50 copies, put them in a CD case and signed them; by the second day, they were all sold. In high school, however, he was not taken seriously for his music; thus, he knew it was up to him to promote his music.

Getting the right connections

Even though Lil Skies was determined to be a rapper, he knew he had to find people who would propel him in the right direction. The fact that he is from Pennsylvania may have helped him build a reputation; according to RollingStone Jeff Vaughn who signed Lil Skies to Atlantic Records said that he was drawn to Lil Skies because he is from Pennsylvania. The A&R believes that the rapper attracts the public through his background, which they can relate to at a personal level.

Social media has become the best platform for anyone willing to promote their products and services. Lil Skies, therefore, used to follow Cufboys on their YouTube channel not realizing that they also liked his music until one day he heard Landon Cube and Cameron Haller play his song, so he reached out to them. Luckily, his style got Cameron to ask Landon to collaborate with Lil Skies, and they did “Red Roses” which remains to be Lil Skies’ favorite song so far because not only did Landon make it epic, it also told the story of Lil Skies and his life.

Making money from his music

The song has since gone platinum with 80,000 certified sales and streaming figures in Canada and 1,000,000 in the United States. Lil Skies had told Landon that it would hit a million sales as they recorded, but he was still in shock when his prophecy came true.

Since reputable labels pay at least $0.5 per CD for orders over 100, 000, that would mean that Lil Skies already made about $500,000 from the song alone. His album “Life of A Dark Rose” had sold 652,000 units by December 2018 which also translate to a substantial amount.

His work has also attracted other big names in the industry. Gucci Mane tried signing Lil Skies, but he was not interested; he explained that he is trying to build his brand as well. All the same, they collaborated to record “Shelby”, and within the first week, it had earned 54,122 album-equivalent units and 68,609,096 on-demand audio streams. Spotify usually pays $7.50 per 1,000 streams which would translate to roughly $514,000.

Since the musician is also on SoundCloud, which pays $1 for every 776 streams that would mean Lil Skies earned $88,000. The musician has also put his music on other streaming platforms like Apple Music, Google Play and Tidal, which require even fewer streams to earn $1 meaning that he got even more money from that album. Besides, that is only one album, and the rapper has four albums so far that are in demand translating to higher revenues for him.

Other income sources

After releasing his “Shelby” album, the rapper also released a limited edition of Lil Skies merchandise that would only be available for a week. Of course, that was such a great move for the enterprising musician who knew that his fans would want the hoodies and t-shirts, especially at the time. According to Cool Accidents, each item was an album bundle so each fan would get the limited edition merchandise with an album too.

For those who missed out on the limited edition items, there is the option of buying hoodies such as one available on Amazon that has the images of Lil Skies and Landon Cube, going for between $49 and $54. There are also other items including t-shirts, stickers and posters, among many other items on Redbubble.

Lil Skies also gets some money from making tours around the world. There is one that was planned for May 8 to May 10, 2020, but with the COVID-19 pandemic, it had to be rescheduled. Moreover, if you like his music and would want him to perform at your event, he charges between $40k and $60k.

While all this is evidence of a person determined to be rich, Lil Skies also confessed to Elevator Magazine that he also does not buy anything he does not need and instead prefers investing in himself and bettering his career. With such a mindset, the $3 million will soon grow exponentially.

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