Hip-hop stars make Alpine, New Jersey, the richest place you’ve never heard of

According to an article in the Guardian, a UK publication, a few of New York’s hip-hop powerful apparently reside in the sleepy little town of Alpine, in New Jersey. Puff/Diddy, Lil’ Kim, and Mary J. Blige all own ridonkulously expensive homes there, with even more ridonkulously expensive property taxes. The article points out that “for a town that is 75% white, according to the latest US census, Alpine has drawn a particularly large number of black stars – the New York Times described it as the home of hip-hop royalty.”

Even though the article seems to lump in any wealthy black entertainer/sports star as “hip-hop”, it’s still an interesting look at a non-Hamptons/NYC/LA place where the super-successful kick off their shoes and relax their ridonkulously rich feet.

Oddly, for such a sedate enclave, famous residents tend to be extrovert entertainers – Chris Rock, P Diddy, Lil’ Kim and Mary J Blige all have homes in Alpine. Stevie Wonder used to live here and Wesley Snipes ran into trouble for failing to pay taxes on his $8m Alpine pied-a-terre.

(And no, despite being amazingly intelligent, we don’t know what the hell a “pied-a-terre” is. Sorry.)