Amid news that Kendrick Lamar and SZA just achieved the highest-grossing hip-hop tour of all time, DJ Akademiks had an interesting remark to make about touring and the state of rap music. Of course, this wasn't a direct response to K.Dot and Solána's milestone. But it's one of many other tour-related stories that gives context to his commentary.
For example, there is also the wild success of the MASA tour from NBA YoungBoy, the Opium trek spearheaded by Playboi Carti, and more. However, the streamer and commentator took to his livestream to speak on hip-hop tours, as caught by his Akademiks TV alternate page on Twitter. Ak seemed to refer to music as a whole in his comments and used hip-hop examples. But the caption of this clip indicates the real intent he wants to communicate with them. "Akademiks says RAP is DEAD because of TOURING," the caption reads.
"Yo, I keep telling y'all: part of the reason music is going down [is that] the majority of acts that are popping are all on tour," DJ Akademiks opined. "Like, people are realizing [that] you're going to get just more money by going on the road. And I don't know if this is a pandemic re-correction. But all of the hot artists, they're announcing tours. I think J. Cole's about to announce a tour. Kendrick's on the tour, you know, he lazy. Drake, he never stops touring. He's about to announce some other s**t. Like, everybody's on the road. [Playboi] Carti just came off of a tour with The Weeknd and he's about to go on tour again [presumably the aforementioned and ongoing "Antagonist" tour]."
DJ Akademiks Touring
"Usually, that wasn't the case in hip-hop," he continued. "In hip-hop, you usually dropped one album, and if it was really, really successful, you go on a big tour. Now, what we're realizing? You drop one album and you go on three tours. Three tours, do mad festivals, and come back in two years. And again, I think that's like a re-correction of the pandemic when touring was dead. So now, you know, touring is back up."
