Meet the blingiest women in music
In pop culture, it’s the norm to hear music artists brag about their rings and chains, especially when it comes to male rappers – but we want to see how much the women of the industry boast about their bling. From dazzling necklaces to bold bracelets, some of the most popular women in the music industry love to show off their jewels.
But who holds the most extravagant collection? The experts at Pandora have examined press images and the latest Instagram posts of some of the hottest female musicians in R&B, rap, pop and soul right now to find who’s flashing the most bling.
Female musicians with the blingiest jewellery collections
Our research reveals that Cardi B has the most expensive jewellery collection of all female musicians, with a valuation of over £10.5 million. She is closely followed by Beyoncé whose collection is worth almost £9 million. Arguably one of the UK’s greatest exports, Adele, ranks as the third blingiest musician amassing a collection worth nearly £4 million. It seems that her necklaces, bracelets and jewels are almost as precious as her voice.
Which genre boasts the most expensive jewellery collection?
Blingy jewellery isn’t void of any genre, however rap artists are the blingiest of the bunch with the most expensive jewellery collections. All our rap artists’ collections amount to a grand total of over £13 million, and Cardi B owns an impressive share of this sum!
R&B artists have the second most expensive jewellery collection with a total valuation of just over £10 million. R&B’s leading artist, Beyoncé, also boasts one of the most expensive pieces of jewellery of all female musicians – a dazzling diamond necklace.
The pop genre amassed just over £4 million, and Lady Gaga is the blingiest of all popstars thanks to her collection worth £3.1 million.
Soul accounts for the smallest valuation as these musicians’ collections totalled £3,860,695. Adele owns the most expensive portfolio of the female soul artists, with her jewels making up nearly the entire sum coming in at £3,812,677.
How many Spotify streams would it take to cover the cost of their jewellery collection?
To put the price of these jewels into perspective, we compared the value of all the collections against how many Spotify streams these artists would need to break even.
For instance, Cardi B’s hit song ‘WAP’ debuted at number 1 in the charts, and with 1,019,044,699 streams this is her most streamed song. However, to cover the cost of her jewellery collection she would need four times as many streams!
Do their lyrics match up with the cost of their jewellery collection?
When it comes to singing about jewels in their music, Rihanna tops the charts with a whopping 76 mentions in her lyrics, followed by Dua Lipa with 46 mentions. Beyoncé and Cardi B fall just behind in third and fourth position totalling 28 and 27 mentions. With lyrics like “I was born to flex (yes), diamonds on my neck” in Cardi B’s track Money, it’s no wonder she takes the crown as the blingiest woman in music.
Get a taste of the glitz and glam lifestyle with our Pandora ME collection. Whether you prefer big and bold designs, or opt for a minimalistic style, find the perfect jewellery for you or someone special at Pandora. Our pieces are available in silver, gold and rose gold designs and are customisable to reflect every side of your personality.
Methodology:
• Pandora looked to discover the jewellery collections of 20 of the biggest female artists in the genres of rap, R&B, pop and soul.
• Pandora looked at the eight most recent pieces of jewellery the artists were seen wearing on Instagram and obtained the price of each item through desk research.
• For the items where online prices were not available, Pandora collaborated with professional jewellery valuator, Mr-Expert.Com, to estimate the value of the pieces. Some items were impossible to valuate due to a lack of information and were therefore omitted from the final calculations.
• To work out how many Spotify streams were needed to pay for the jewellery collections, Pandora used the estimate of $0.0033 earned per Spotify stream according to Headphonesty. Pandora converted the GBP value of the jewellery to USD to make this streaming estimation.
• To work out how the artists’ mention of jewellery in their lyrics compared to their jewellery collection, Pandora scraped the lyrics of the artists’ top 10 songs on Spotify (based on number of listens). With this data Pandora identified how many times each artist mentioned a word relating to jewellery or a synonym of jewellery.
• Caveats on the estimations: Most estimates are based on the pieces being a 'designer' brand and 14k solid gold & upwards (not plated). The carats are based on the comparative size in the photographs given. Stones were identified by colour alone and were trained guesses. Stone values were based on modern cuts rather than antique and no paste. Some stones will have been colour corrected/heat treated but the estimations cannot account for that, nor for flaws. Diamonds were based on VVS clarity and were pearls based on being cultured, if not explicitly stated as freshwater pearls.
• All information accurate at time of collection (April 2022).