Back in the day the think used to be gold chains, expensive watches and clothes and more things that went with "The Look". Those things weren't cheap. They spent a lot of money. I remember Russell Simmons saying, "Nobody ever told those guys to waste all of that money on gold, clothes and drugs." Add the drugs to that and that is a lot of money. I remember hearing that Toni Braxton was fighting to get more than the 35-50 cents per CD she was getting (which was a big problem in the delay from album two (Secrets) to album three (The Heat), and that was in 96-97. I don't know what they were making off of each LP sold back in the 80's/early 90's but it wasn't much.
There were a lot of rappers: Big Daddy Kane, Kool Moe Dee, Doug E. Fresh, MC Lyte, Roxanne Shonte', Biz Markie are an example of those I am talking about. They had success, but not longevity. I'm not talking about the Ice-T, LL Cool J, Fresh Prince, etc. whose success spanned into the next century and other avenues (acting). The ones that weren't fly by night, they had multiple albums and then POOF, gone.
I was listening to Sirius Channel 39 (Old School Hip-Hop) and they played Big Mama by Roxanne Shante and it got me to thinking.
Shanté retired when she was 25 to focus her attention on obtaining a higher education. She went on to receive a Ph.D. in psychology, eventually running her own practice and building a family in New York.