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Today’s episode is our 2025 Live Music Draft! Tati Cirisano and I picked one live music event in each category. We prioritized commercial and cultural impact:
- 1 Stadium Tour
- 1 Music Festival
- 1 Arena Tour (first-timer)
- 1 Concert Residency
- 1 Tour to Exceed Expectations
- 1 Underperforming Tour
You can listen to the episode here or read below for one of the tours that was briefly mentioned, but I want to talk more about today: Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s Grand National Tour.
all the stars - stadium status
There’s been tons of discussion about hip-hop’s current “downturn.” Some of the critiques are warranted, but the context overlooks Kendrick Lamar’s tremendous run. We’re approaching the one-year anniversary of “Not Like Us,” the Grammy Award-winning Record of the Year and Song of the Year from the reigning Super Bowl Halftime Show performer, who turned down an opportunity to headline Coachella to headline his own stadium tour! This is a moment for the genre that should be recognized.
It reminds me of another genre-building shift when Jay-Z and Live Nation agreed on their 10-year, $150 million deal in 2008. It elevated hip-hop to a global touring product. Jay-Z, who was part of the 1999 Hard Knock Life Tour where promoters were nervous to showcase the first all-hip-hop arena tour in the U.S., was now headlining 2008 Glastonbury, scoffing at his haters like that ‘bloke from Oasis.’
It was quite the come-up. A come-up that helped set the stage for a hip-hop stadium tour like Kendrick Lamar and SZA's Grand National Tour, which is projected to gross over $300 million in ticket sales.
Technically, Kendrick and SZA are co-headliners, which Punch, SZA’s manager and TDE President, has reminded people about. Both The Big Steppers Tour and The SOS Tour were of similar stature. But since the tour is named after K.dot's latest album, and he does more solo songs than she does, it's more of a 1A / 1B situation. Like Shaq and Kobe on the early 2000s Los Angeles Lakers.
Even at hip-hop's commercial peak in its share of recorded revenue, the genre still paled in comparison to the touring revenue generated by legacy pop and rock acts. In 2022, hip-hop and R&B accounted for 27% of U.S. recorded music revenue yet just 11% of U.S. touring revenue. There are a number of reasons for that gap, hip-hop is a younger genre than rock and pop, institutional bias that has elevated white musicians and the genres they dominate, and the list goes on.
But Kendrick's tour feels like a glass ceiling that's broken. "We can sell out the same venues that you can" is the statement being made. The counter is that Drake could have done this years ago but chose not to for various reasons. He prefers relatively smaller venues despite the economic tradeoff. Yet it's poetic that Kendrick elevated to this status after "Not Like Us" – arguably the biggest diss track of all time that was all about Drake – cemented his cultural dominance in 2024.
Now that a ceiling is broken, I do hope that the narrative around these tours gets the same level of treatment as any other tour. The discourse around the empty seats at Beyonce's Cowboy Carter tour had a little too much zest for my liking. That's not to say that her touring decisions are beyond reproach, they are not! I called out the potential downside as well. But let's make sure that we're criticizing the right things and not pushing false narratives.
As CAA's Akin Aliu reminded me in last year's episode on The Art and Science of Behind Sold Out Shows. There's a delicate balance between ambition and practicality. Some agencies push artists to larger venues prematurely, which can damage long-term touring potential if shows undersell. The goal should be sustainable growth, not just bigger venues for the sake of it.
The sad truth is that TMZ, The Shade Room, Pop Crave, and similar outlets didn't care when Linkin Park just downgraded and discounted their tickets from Dodger Stadium to Intuit Dome. I'm also glad that Linkin Park didn't experience that! I commend the band for pushing on despite the death of lead singer Chester Bennington. But let a contemporary hip-hop, pop, or R&B act have a similar downgrade at a stadium level, the schadenfreude will be relentless.
In our latest episode, we dive deeper into the economics of other big live music events in 2025. Our life music draft was a ton of fun. I intentionally didn’t spoil it here but I recommend you check it out!
Listen here: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Overcast
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