Kendrick Lamar scores ‘biggest rap tour ever’

Kendrick Lamar’s The Big Steppers Tour has reportedly become the highest-grossing headline tour of all time by a rap artist.

According to Touring Data, the 73-date Live Nation-promoted tour has garnered US$110,886,026 from 929,056 ticket sales.

The rapper generated $69,255,230 from 492,283 tickets sold for 40 dates in North America, $31,593,834 from 26 shows in Europe, which attracted 349,401 attendees, and $10,036,962 from seven Oceania gigs, which pulled in 87,372 fans.

Produced by Live Nation and presented by Rotation, Amazon Music’s hip-hop and R&B brand, Lamar’s 2022 tour wrapped up at New Zealand at Auckland’s Spark Arena on 16 December.

The rapper has a slate of festival dates across Europe, North America and Asia lined up for later this year

The figures see Lamar comfortably surpass Drake and Future’s 54-date Summer Sixteen Tour ($84.3 million) from 2016, and Drake and Migos’ 2018 Aubrey & The Three Migos run, which grossed $79m from 43 shows, according to Pollstar. It also topped Kanye West and Jay-Z’s 57-concert 2011/12 Watch The Throne Tour ($75.4m) and Lamar’s 2017/18 The Damn Tour ($62.7m).

Lamar’s 2017 album, DAMN, famously became the first non-jazz or classical recording to win the Pulitzer Prize and also claimed five Grammy Awards.

The 35-year-old American rapper, who headlined the final night of Glastonbury 2022, has a slate of festival dates across Europe, North America and Asia lined up for later this year, including at Primavera Sound, Poland’s Open’er Festival, Rolling Lound Rotterdam and Germany, Lollapalooza Paris and Chicago, and Summer Sonic in Osaka and Tokyo, Japan.

 

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