Because the fans expect their favorite artists to be crazy paid and livin' large, this puts an incredible amount of pressure on the artists to appear wealthy. I've even seen people cop an attitude if the artist doesn't pay for everything. Once an artist releases a record, the pressure is on to portray a successful image to their friends, families, fans, and people around the way.
People expect the artist to be well dressed, drive a phat car, etc.
Sadly, when an artist gets signed to a label deal, especially a rap artist, he or she recieves somewhere between 8 to 13 points. The artist has to sell hella units to make any money back. We're going to assume that there are three artists in the group, and they split everything equally. We're also going to assume that they produce their own tracks themselves. Now the label recoups what they've spent.