Kendrick Lamar has made history yet again. This time, he surpassed Eminem to become the rapper with the highest-grossing hip-hop concert. The 22-time Grammy winner broke the previous record on the opening night of his Grand National Tour.
The first show of the musician’s tour took place in Minneapolis on April 19. The first tour date grossed an estimated $9.1 million. With those earnings, Lamar’s concert became the highest-grossing hip-hop concert ever. The previous record was held by ‘Rap God’ Eminem. The rapper previously broke the record with his 2019 concert that happened in Melbourne, Australia.
needless to say the grand national tour in atlanta was absolutely insane 🙂↕️ pic.twitter.com/nwnpv3lAiT
— billieee 🫂 (@lildraziw) April 30, 2025
47,000 fans filtered into the venue on day one of the Grand National Tour. Concert-goers paid an average of $192.70 for the show at the U.S. Bank Stadium. The show also put a feather in Lamar’s individual professional career by becoming his most-attended show. 47,354 tickets in total were sold for the Minneapolis show.
SZA and Mustard are two musical guests who joined the rapper on stage during the show. The Grand National Tour is in support of Lamar’s newest album, GNX. GNX, which came out in November 2024, has several musicians featured on it, including Dody6, Lefty Gunplay, Wallie the Sensei, Siete7x, Roddy Ricch, AzChike, and Hitta J3.
Top Dawg calls SZA & Kendrick Lamar “Queen” & “King” after yet another amazing show 👑👑#GrandNationalTour pic.twitter.com/juMCUkwE8k
— Hiiipower – TDE News (@hiiipowers) April 30, 2025
GNX turned out to be a wildly successful release for the rapper as it charted as No. 1 on the Billboard 200. The studio album also sold 319,000 copies in its first week of being out. “Squabble Up” and “Luther,” two of the tracks featured on the album, made their way into the Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hits. Luther remained on top of the charts for a total of 9 weeks.
Earlier this year, Kendrick broke another record while making history. Lamar’s performance at the Caesars Superdome became the most-watched halftime performance in history. The star who performed at the Super Bowl’s halftime show brought in a viewership of 133.5 million.
The previous record was set by Michael Jackson and his 1993 half-time performance. 133 million worldwide had tuned in to watch the star perform. Kendrick’s 13-minute performance that featured SZA, Samuel L Jackson, and Serena Williams wasn’t received well by everyone.
say drake 😩
this kendrick #superbowl performance is an all-time victory lap 😭
pic.twitter.com/UzBzCfbDjW— Genius (@Genius) February 10, 2025
A report that was released after the show revealed how the Feds received several complaints regarding the performance. Following the star’s New Orleans performance, the Federal Communications Commission received 125 complaints.
The star’s diss track ‘Not Like Us’ that is aimed at singer Drake received 11 complaints, according to TMZ. On the famous track, Lamar implies that Drake is a pedophile, which could have been the reason behind people considering it problematic enough to call in.
