It’s been more than a year since Kendrick Lamar upended the rap game and significantly altered the course of popular culture with “Not Like Us,” the five-time Grammy-winning, Billboard Hot 100-topping knockout punch in his monthslong battle against Drake. If the feverish crowd at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium on Friday night (May 10) was anything to go by, K.Dot’s ongoing domination isn’t likely to subside anytime soon.
Lamar and SZA, former TDE labelmates and both global superstars in their own rights, graced the NYC-area venue for their second of two shows in East Rutherford, N.J., on their blockbuster Grand National Tour. One of the most ambitious treks in hip-hop history, the Grand National Tour is a towering achievement.
From mainstream-conquering smashes (“Luther,” “Humble,” “DNA”) to headier deep cuts from his latest Billboard 200 chart-topper (“Man at the Garden,” “Reincarnated”), Lamar meticulously presented hip-hop as stadium-sized theater. He didn’t do so by relying on flashy production or set design; instead, he stripped hip-hop down to its five founding pillars, laying bare the incomparable art form that is emceeing on a hot mic.
Kicking things off with GNX opener “Wacced Out Murals,” Lamar launched the nearly three-hour extravaganza all on his lonesome. Lamar and SZA traded sets bridged by beloved duets like “Doves in the Wind,” “All the Stars” and the more recent “30 for 30 Freestyle.” Though both artists sourced the bulk of their sets from their most recent releases (GNX for Lamar and SOS Deluxe: LANA for SZA), they also held space for their respective catalogs. Lamar rapped the opening verse of “Swimming Pools” completely a cappella for his “day ones”; SZA frequently shouted out her “Ctrl babies” before performing cuts like “Garden (Say It Like Dat)” and “Broken Clocks,” and she pulled Zacari‘s weight for a sweet rendition of Lamar’s “Love.”
Across a stage reminiscent of the video game controller setup of Lamar’s landmark Super Bowl LIX halftime show, the Grand National Tour’s set design is largely minimalistic, save for a stair platform placed at the center of the stage. Despite a few levitating mini-platforms and a flying fairy moment for SZA, the true centerpiece of the Grand National stage was the literal GNX that helped the set transition between each set. When Kendrick first hit the stage, the black GNX stood as it does on the album cover, but by the time SZA hit her set, the vehicle transformed into a grassy, fauna-laden ride that nodded to the insect aesthetic of the LANA era. At the show’s close (“Gloria”), Lamar opened the passenger door for SZA like a consummate gentleman and joined her in the car as they wished the packed stadium safe travels home.
Both a wildly impressive victory lap and the progeny of over a decade of grueling work from both Lamar and SZA, the Grand National Tour saw two of the most defining artists of the 2010s operating at the height of their powers while ensuring hip-hop always remains at the center.
Here are the 10 best moments from their Grand National Tour stop at MetLife Stadium.
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Prince Easter Eggs
On Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That,” the song that heralded his rejection of the widely accepted Blog Era Big Three mythology, Lamar proclaimed himself Prince (to Drizzy’s Michael Jackson), spitting, “And your best work is a light pack/ N—-, Prince outlived Mike Jack.”
Kendrick performed with The Purple One before his passing and has often spoken about his love and respect for the music icon. So it was no surprise that “Purple Rain” was the final song to blare through the stadium speakers before the lights dimmed. That moment, combined with SZA’s brief, cheeky interpolation of “Kiss” during “Kiss Me More,” made for a pair of Prince easter eggs that bolstered the throughline of tributing Black music legends — from Anita Baker to Teedra Moses.
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SZA’s Rock Star Moment
To kick off her second act of the night, SZA leaned heavily into her rock inclinations with a fiery medley of “Scorsese Baby Daddy” and “F2F.” With an impressive guitarist trailing her on both walkways, SZA delivered all the belts, ad-libs, hair flips and dramatic, drop-to-your-knees stage choreography that a great pop-star-goes-rock moment should have.
In fact, she seemed a bit more comfortable in this mode than as levitating balladeer (“Nobody Gets Me”), but her true achievement was how naturally she shifted between both templates — alongside several others as the night unfolded.
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The Musical Arrangements
A downside to the rise of backing track rappers is the lack of musical innovation and imagination when it comes to reinterpreting songs for a live setting. Thankfully, Lamar is not of that ilk.
At the Super Bowl, Kendrick rearranged certain songs (take the barbershop quartet feel of “Man at the Garden,” for example) to align with the show’s theme of navigating pride and existing while Black in America. On the Grand National Tour, he reimagined decade-old songs in the spirit of the Anita Baker tapes that soundtracked rides in his GNX.
“M.A.A.D. City” got a “Sweet Love” makeover, underscoring the push-and-pull between love and hate that grounds the setlist, while pounding live drums bolstered the foreboding feel of “Wacced Out Murals” at the show’s onset. Who says pyro is the only way to add a bit of drama?
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Kendrick’s Impressive Stamina
Lamar’s unrelenting stamina was one of the most impressive and talked-about elements of his Super Bowl halftime show. Friday night made that look like child’s play. In totality, the Grand National show runs about two hours and 15 minutes, with Kendrick and SZA essentially getting half of that time each.
In an era where far too many rappers rely on backing tracks — or simply hold the mic out to the audience while an .mp3 file plays through the speakers — Lamar’s commitment to rapping every last bar live was spellbinding. From the six-minute tour de force that is 2024’s “Euphoria” to significantly different arrangements of classic tracks like “M.A.A.D. City,” Lamar never ran out of breath or let a backing track carry him when he was on the stage — and that’s all while he was executing choreography and working every side of the massive stage.
While the tour is certainly impressive in its translation of cinematic minimalism to a stadium venue, Kendrick’s intensely physical performance was the true anchor of the show.
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SZA Debuts ‘Another Life’ Live
Though “30 for 30 Freestyle” hit the Hot 100’s top 10 and “BMF” and “Diamond Boy” were quasi-hits, “Another Life” is the track that truly emerged as the fan-favorite of LANA.
After teasing a flexible, rotating setlist at the last few tour stops, SZA surprised MetLife Stadium with her first live performance of “Another Life,” slotting into her tear-jerking ballad section alongside the SOS Hot 100 hit “Nobody Gets Me.”
If you happened to be in a section with a solid number of SZA fans, you’d know the screams for “Another Life” were on par with those for actual chart toppers like “Kill Bill” — a beautiful reminder of how SZA’s most beloved songs tend to transcend chart metrics.
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Baby Keem Pops Out for ‘Family Ties’
After Playboi Carti popped up in Atlanta for “Good Credit,” many had their eyes on East Rutherford as the next stop to feature a surprise guest.
For night two, Baby Keem came through as the first of two surprise guests. Joining his older cousin for “Family Ties,” Keem drew loud cheers from the crowd as the pair ripped through the Grammy-nominated song. For fans who watched Keem open for Lamar on The Big Steppers Tour, their graduation from arenas to stadiums was particularly thrilling to witness.
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Interludes Flaunt K.Dot & Solána’s Brother-Sister Dynamic
Between SZA topping the box office earlier this year alongside Keke Palmer in One of Them Days and Kendrick joining the production team of Trey Parker’s still-untitled 2026 film, the two music stars are making major strides in the film industry. After all, they did earn an Oscar nomination for their gorgeous Black Panther end-credits song, “All the Stars.”
In the interludes preceding Kendrick’s acts, the former labelmates flaunted their acting skills and comedic chops, delivering brief — but informative — glimpses at their adorable older brother-little sister dynamic. From SZA’s insistence that she’d never forget “that prophet n—-‘s” gas station order to Kendrick ranting and raving about her nagging for Chamoy, the video interludes helped frame the whole show as a victory lap road trip from Compton to St. Louis and beyond.
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Five Pillars of Hip-Hop
The secret to Lamar’s incredibly effective staging of hip-hop theater at MetLife was his commitment to upholding the five pillars of hip-hop.
His always-hot mic demonstrated the sheer physicality of his emceeing skills, and Mustard’s opening DJ set and triumphant reappearance during the second half of “TV Off” honored the art of DJing as a foundational principle of hip-hop music and culture. There wasn’t much in the way of traditional graffiti, but the shifting design of the GNX and the storytelling of the tour interludes conveyed the visual characteristics of street art. Of course, the dancers were a core element of the show, with bits of Super Bowl choreography and traditional West Coast moves comprising most of their moves.
Finally, Lamar’s entire catalog has been a journey in acquiring knowledge of the world and self, and the Grand National Tour puts that entire journey on display — with the final destination being the knowledge that hip-hop is, now and forever, a stadium genre.
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Kaytranada Leads Stadium in ‘Be Your Girl’ Sing-Along
Once Keem popped out, it only felt right that SZA would also bring out a friend or two — and so she did. Grammy-winning DJ and producer Kaytranada lit up MetLife Stadium with a swanky performance of his uber-viral remix of Teedra Moses’ “Be Your Girl.”
After teasing the crowd with a bit of dance music via a mashup of her 2017 “The Weekend” track and its disco-tinged Calvin Harris remix, SZA went full-throttle house with Kaytranada’s help, momentarily turning her home state’s marquee stadium into a sacred moment of musical escapism. Naturally, Kaytranada also played a surprise pop-up afterparty tied to SZA’s newly-launched Not Beauty brand.
Even the old heads who were primarily there for Kendrick couldn’t help but bop their heads!
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“This Ain’t No Pop S—!”
“I said, please believe this ain’t no pop s—,” Lamar declared before launching into 2012’s “Money Trees.” “This some rap s— tonight!”
Perhaps one of the most incredible pieces of between-song banter to ever be uttered at MetLife Stadium, Lamar’s declaration was a true moment in hip-hop history. To stage not one, but two, sold-out rap shows in an iconic stadium that draws crowds from at least three different states — including the birthplace of the genre — with a catalog and setlist that refuses to trade on more conventional pop crossover hits (like Hot 100 top 10 hits “Bad Blood” and “Don’t Wanna Know”) is nothing less than sensational.
Last year’s mind-blowing battle forced many people to reorder their Greatest of All Time lists, and the Grand National Tour will undoubtedly shake up those rankings even more.
