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 Forbes.com released its seventh annual list of Top-Earning Dead Celebrities Monday (October 29) and among the list are a few late black celebrities who still have selling power.
The late Tupac Shakur is among the highest earning dead celebrities, coming in at the no. 8 spot, only to the likes of Elvis Presley who took no. 1 and Charlie Brown creator Charles M. Schulz.
Tupac earned a reported $9 million in the last 12 months despite being gone for over 10 years.
The late rapper's estate is profiting from his Makaveli line of clothing, and his mother Afeni Shakur sold a stake of his music catalog to EverGreen Copyrights. For an example of how valuable that is, Tupac is the best-selling rapper of all-time with over 75 million albums sold to date.
Future projects include a Tupac biopic, a Broadway musical and a Tupac-themed videogame, according to Forbes.
James Brown lands right outside the top 10 at no. 11, raking in a reported $5 million in earnings from other the past year -- which comes from his royalties from his vast music catalog.
A biopic is also in the works for Brown. He died on Christmas of 2006 of complications from pneumonia.
Following Brown is reggae legend, Bob Marley, who holds down the no. 12 spot with an estimated $4 million in earnings nearly 27 years after dying from cancer.
Marley's family receives royalties from his music catalog, which includes Legend, the bestselling reggae album in history.
The celeb list also includes Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel, John Lennon, the Beatles' George Harrison and Marilyn Monroe, among others.
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