Anderson .Paak has the smooth, sultry charm of a thousand Barry Whites.
But life wasn’t always easy for the Compton by way of North Philadelphia native.
A recent first-hand account released by Andscape journalist Dwayne Bray — who was a neighbor of the multi-hyphenate as he was growing up — detailed how he truly came from the proverbial hard-knock life.
As a teenager, Ronald Anderson — the father of Anderson .Paak — would switch shifts with his twin brother, Donald, so he’d never miss a day of work (and pay) just to get by. And though this story, in and of itself, would have been inspirational had the elder Anderson done something productive with his life, he would eventually go on to be an addict and a career criminal. Attacking his wife, and the mother of his children — who already overcame adversity when she got adopted out of a Korean orphanage during the Korean War — would prove to be the nadir of his life, one that came to an untimely end in 2011, and one that wouldn’t live to see his son do the family proud.
But Anderson .Paak’s mother didn’t do much better for herself. Initially, according to The Guardian, things looked promising: she started her own organic strawberry business and eventually built it up enough to move herself and her family out of Compton and into a five-bedroom home in a comfortable bedroom community. But when El Nino devastated the crops, Paak’s mother declared bankruptcy and became a professional gambler to make money. She eventually found herself in prison for a number of years for undeclared winnings.
And, for his part, Anderson .Paak has never been shy about sharing the gory details of his upbringing.
“My little sister and I went out front and my pops was on top of my mom. There was blood in the street. He was arrested and that was the last time I saw him. I think he did fourteen years,” he told Billboard about the attack.
Despite all of this tragedy, Anderson .Paak became a success.
Editorial note: The net worth listed in this piece is a speculative estimate drawn from a variety of online sources.
Anderson .Paak: What is His Net Worth?
Despite a rocky start in life, Anderson .Paak managed to make quite the name for himself — to the tune of a $4 million net worth, per Celebrity Net Worth.
From Rags To Riches
Anderson .Paak’s life is a true “rags to riches” story, one that found him making a way for himself despite the adversity against him.
“We had nowhere to go. I had my whole family in a U-Haul,” he once told Billboard. “We had a little bit of money left from the few shows I’d done and the little bit of weed we could sell, but we’d exhausted all our options.”
So, he made a list of all the things he had to do — “adulting” sort of things, if you will — to make his way in life.
“I put a list together,” he said in 2016. “It was like: Get health insurance, get a car, get a bigger apartment, travel more, get a record deal, get a publishing deal, sell 10,000 units, be a part of a No. 1 album, make a million dollars. I got to check off 90 percent of the stuff last year. I hit some serious landmarks in 2015.”
How He Made His Money
Today, Anderson .Paak has proven that it’s possible to manifest your life, no matter how bad things look on the surface.
According to The International Business Times, things began to turn around for him in 2016, with the success of his album, “Malibu.” That led to a deal with Dr. Dre’s Aftermath Records, which resulted in 2018’s “Oxnard” and collaborations with the likes of Kendrick Lamar and Snoop Dogg under his belt.
“Oxnard” peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard charts, and he followed that up with 2019’s “Ventura,” which peaked at No. 2.
HipHopDX reveals that Anderson .Paak’s most successful release was with Silk Sonic, a supergroup with Bruno Mars. The group reached No. 2 on the Billboard charts — more than 102,000 units sold in its first week — with 2021’s “An Evening with Silk Sonic.”
So far, too, he’s won eight GRAMMY awards, and received eleven nominations.
