BY: Walker
Published 2 years ago
Kendrick Lamar can check off another career milestone on his growing list of accomplishments. A year after announcing the launch of his “The Big Steppers Tour,” the musical trek has been named the highest-grossing tour by a headlining rapper in hip hop history.
via: HipHopDX
According to Touring Data, K. Dot’s Big Steppers Tour is now the high-grossing tour by a rapper as a headlining act in history having earned $110.9 million from 929,000 tickets across 73 shows.
This puts K. Dot ahead of Drake and Migos‘ Aubrey & The Three Migos Tour, Drake and Future‘s Summer Sixteen Tour, Kanye West and JAY-Z‘s Watch the Throne Tour, his own DAMN. Tour and Travis Scott‘s Astroworld Tour.
The Big Steppers Tour began in July 2022 following the release of Kendrick’s long-awaited fifth album Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers and came to an end that September.
With support from pgLang protégés Baby Keem and Tanna Leone, the tour initially took place across North America, before heading to Europe and Australia and New Zealand.
Kendrick Lamar, Dave Free and Mike Carson were creative directors for the tour, with actress Helen Mirren serving as the narrator. The setlist included songs from not only Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, but Kendrick’s previous albums good kid, m.A.A.d city, To Pimp a Butterfly and DAMN.
.@kendricklamar's "The Big Steppers" is the highest-grossing tour by a rapper as headlining act in history with $110.9 million from 929,000 tickets sold in 73 shows.
— Touring Data (@touringdata) April 26, 2023
Top Tours by Rappers:
#1 #KendrickLamar, "The Big Steppers"
#2 #Drake, "Aubrey & the Three Migos"
#3 #Drake & #Future, "Summer Sixteen"
#4 #KanyeWest & #JayZ, "Watch the Throne"
#5 #KendrickLamar, "Damn"
#6 #TravisScott, "Astroworld"— Touring Data (@touringdata) April 26, 2023
Kendrick’s $110.9 million earnings put him ahead of Drake and Migos by a wide margin, with their Aubrey and The Three Migos Tour reportedly grossing $79 million in 2018 from a total of 678,410 tickets sold across 43 dates.
Drizzy reportedly took home $47 million, while Migos’ Quavo, TakeOff and Offset split the remaining $24.5 million.
Tyler The Creator‘s Call Me If You Get Lost Tour became the highest-grossing Hip Hop tour of the post-pandemic era in April 2022.
Billboard reported the tour pulled in $32.6 million, eclipsing J. Cole’s The Off-Season Tour, as well as Omarion, Bow Wow, Soulja Boy, Ashanti, Pretty Ricky and Ying Yang Twins’ Millennium Tour.