Over this past weekend Kendrick Lamar and SZA kickstarted their nationwide tour right here in Minneapolis! The two are huge names in rap and alternative; they recently performed the Super Bowl halftime show. Their first show, in Minneapolis, was sold out. Over 50,000 fans attended making Lamar and SZA a few million dollars in just one night.
The opener for the concert was DJ Mustard. Mustard is a good friend of Kendrick and has helped produce several songs for Kendrick, this list includes the Grammy winning hit “Not Like Us” and “TV off.” Even if you don’t know the name you have definitely heard his producer tag, “Mustard on that beat” or the iconic “MUSTAAAAARD” scream. Mustard set the vibe for the night while he performed his DJ set playing songs like “Swag Surfin,” “Plain Jane,” and several GloRilla songs.
The first song was “Wacced Out Murals” which expresses Lamar’s frustration with the rap world and all the controversy he faces from others in the same field. Lamar and SZA took turns performing, and they arguably had one of the best set lists ever. They both sung some of their biggest hits. SZA performed “Kill Bill,” “Saturn,” “F2F,” and “Scorsese Baby Daddy”. My favorite song SZA performed was “Rich Baby Daddy” or “Kitchen”. SZAs performances were very pretty and for “Saturn” she was lifted into the air.
Kendrick’s set was also lit, I loved all of his old songs he performed like “m.A.A.d city,” “Alright,” and “Money Trees.” Every single song performed was a hit and a controversial song he performed was “Poetic Justice” which is a song he collabed with Drake for. Some of Kendrick’s most electric songs were “Euphoria,” “Not Like Us,” “Like That,” and “HUMBLE.” My favorite song performed was “Squabble up” or “TV off” (specifically the Mustard scream).
Kendrick and SZA also performed multiple songs together such as “30 for 30,” “Gloria,” “Luther,” and “All of the Stars.” Hearing these songs live was magical and even from way up high in the nosebleeds, it was perfect. Personally this setlist and performance was very well set out. The visuals during the concert were super good and there was definitely lots of thought put behind everything. There were lots of visuals from Compton LA, which is were Lamar and Mustard are from. The SZA videos were very naturey to match the LANA SOS DELUXE album theme.
