Kendrick Lamar’s Toronto shows were an all-time statement

TORONTO – On 2001’s “Hola Hovito” — a standout cut from the Library of Congress-immortalized The Blueprint — Jay-Z declared that if he wasn’t better than his late, close friend The Notorious B.I.G., he was “the closest one.” As the North American leg of Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s massively successful Grand National Tour nears its end, it’s time to say this about the Compton MC.

Placing Lamar’s resume in context and after witnessing the highly anticipated Toronto show in person, it’s not audacious to say he is close to being the greatest. Yet, before getting into the logistics of why that holds weight, one must understand the moment that stood in front of Lamar. His Super Bowl halftime show and Drake’s lawsuit against Universal Music Group over the smash hit diss record “Not Like Us” are still in litigation. And, yes, there’s no denying what the last year has done for Kendrick Lamar’s career (and, to keep it a buck, Drake’s too).

Hours before Thursday’s show at the Rogers Centre, I sat at Gabby’s, a quaint restaurant a stone’s throw away from the Toronto Blue Jays stadium. Kendrick has always valued Toronto as a tour destination, but the conversation revolved around what Drake meant to Toronto.

“F— Drake. Yeah, he’s had hit records. But you’re a joke. I hope Kendrick embarrasses the f— outta him tonight,” said a bartender named Melissa I spoke to in Toronto. 

Her co-worker, Travis, co-signed her sentiment: “All that repping Toronto s— is fake. I hope [Kendrick] does ‘Not Like Us’ 100 times, and it keeps Drake up at night.”

The reality of what Melissa and Travis said lies somewhere in the middle. What Drake has done for Toronto, from an outside perspective, can’t be understated. For better and worse, according to several Toronto residents, he is the foremost recognizable representative for the city on an international stage. Despite everything, Drake remains the greatest hitmaker in rap history. Given the sheer volume of chart-topping numbers, there’s no way to refute what he’s delivered or helped deliver to others. And he’s clearly got enough pull to make Canadian politicians, like former head of the New Democratic Party Jagmeet Sing, publicly apologize on social media for attending last week’s show. This is sort of the anxiety and intensity that permeated in the air before, during and certainly after the show. It’s why both nights felt like such a line in the sand moment because, in many ways, they were. The city may appreciate Drake’s decades long dominance, but blind loyalty doesn’t exist either:

On stage, though, Lamar and SZA’s chemistry was irrefutable. In back-and-forth sets, both artists commanded the lore and adoration of fans who came to see them. SZA garnered her decibel-breaking moments, further cementing herself as the foremost R&B artist of the decade. Her role and importance on the tour was clear. She is the yin to Kendrick’s yang, but their creative affinity is why the tour has overachieved in the manner it has thus far. When Kendrick handed the baton off to SZA, and vice versa, a beacon of pride resonated in knowing the show wouldn’t have a drop-off. An added sense of intensity and flavor arrived in ways that never allowed monotony to creep in. As SZA went through a stream of her hits, many of which drew massive reactions from the sold-out crowd, there was perhaps none bigger than her appearance on “Rich Baby Daddy,” the irony of which being Drake’s song was lost on no one. But everyone there understood that night was about Kendrick and how he would perform on his greatest enemy’s home turf.

According to sources, attempts by Drake’s camp to have both tour shows canceled or postponed allegedly took place in hopes of booking OVO Fest. However, by then, paperwork with the Rogers Centre had already been filed, and no other venue in the city could hold the same capacity. Ultimately, the best that could happen was a stream with Kai Cenat, which also fell through. Though universally known in Toronto sports circles for his close affiliation with the Raptors, Drake’s relationship with the Blue Jays is cordial at best. Part of his 2011 “Headlines” video was filmed at Rogers Centre, and the artwork to his 2015 Meek Mill diss “Back To Back” featured Blue Jays legend Joe Carter’s 1993 walk-off World Series home run. Outside of that, his presence at Blue Jays games isn’t well documented, so when the request came in, the team and stadium didn’t feel much of a need to try and honor it because it wasn’t as if the bond was ever that strong to begin with.

This brings everything back to Kendrick Lamar’s performance and the obvious crescendo that was the ultimate middle finger to Drake in his own city. He ran through a litany of his catalog’s greatest hits, in particular “Humble” and “Money Trees” that reverberated around the stadium. He was serenely, almost eerily calm on stage. It could be because he understood the magnitude of each song and lyric’s meaning. After all, his every step played out on the world’s stage. Or it’s because Lamar had done so many of these shows already that by the time he arrived in Toronto, understanding what resonated with crowds had already been established. Nevertheless, Lamar commanded with a pristine strategy mirrored his every move during his vicious haymaker volley with Drake.

During their barrage of diss tracks, Kendrick Lamar famously waited weeks between Drake’s “Push Ups” and “Taylor Made Freestyle” to respond. Many in the rap world wondered if He’d gotten ahead of himself by dissing a juggernaut like Drake. But those close to Kendrick advised him to take the friction with the utmost importance. Their mutual disdain had been brewing since Kendrick’s landmark 2013 “Control” verse and finally came to a head last year. Moments like this don’t come around twice, they advised. Thanks to his appearance on Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That,” which became the country’s number-one song, he got Drake’s attention to the point where he responded with multiple tracks. What Lamar said next couldn’t be seen as lackadaisical. It wasn’t.

On stage in Toronto last week, Kendrick highlighted a handful of those moments, including “Euphoria,” in which mentioned the Chinese restaurant New Ho King (which became the unofficial afterparty of the concert). Yet, “Not Like Us,” already the most impactful diss song in rap history, a record-breaking, Grammy-awarding winning display of animosity and the emotional apex of the show in every city, felt remarkably sinister in Toronto.

It wasn’t just the “certified pedophile” line that ultimately landed the track in court. It wasn’t even the “A-minor” line that’ll haunt Drake for the rest of his career, no matter what he continues to accomplish. Instead, Toronto, of all cities, embraced Kendrick’s pettiness in unimaginable ways.

The crowd pleaded for an encore that never came and gave Kendrick Lamar a road victory that the NBA Finals hasn’t seen since the Cleveland Cavaliers upset the Golden State Warriors in Game 7 of the 2016 Finals. Whatever animosity it had toward its own homegrown superstar (who, to be fair, credited several other cities like Memphis and Houston with his musical identity) came out at that very moment. There is no greater example of a victory lap than what Kendrick Lamar is on. And, of all cities, Toronto was the one to cement such. Drake’s lone response, an ill-fated and flat-footed, melodic feature on Smiley’s “2 Mazza,” did little to distract from Kendrick’s flag-planting declaration.

This brings us back to the original point of emphasis: Kendrick’s greatest of all-time candidacy. His path to musical immortality has been paved by three unimpeachable veins of success: critical, commercial and competitive. The battle with Drake alone didn’t lead to this moment, though it undeniably helped. His catalog has long been one of the greatest the genre has ever seen, earning praise from luminaries like Prince and Quincy Jones. From storytelling odysseys like good kid, m.A.A.d city and the Pulitzer Prize-winning DAMN to dense, thought-provoking reality checks like To Pimp a Butterfly and Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers, and scoring the soundtrack to 2018’s billion-dollar-classic in Black Panther, his body of work places him among a short, but unassailable list of artists across genres commanding respect, adoration and awe. GNX, the 2024 masterpiece that produced the record-breaking SZA collaboration “Luther,” firmly planted itself as a generational love letter to the West Coast, which Lamar has long opined for.

Though his hit records primarily operate in a different sonical pocket from someone like Drake’s, Lamar’s own bevy of needle-moving hits like “Alright,” “m.A.A.d city,” “DNA” or the SZA collaboration “All The Stars” have made him a focal point of hip-hop over the last 20 years with a voice and message worthy of dissertation-level analysis. His tours, including the current one, have consistently shattered records, earning him the distinction of rap’s best live performer. His albums, too. Awards have long been a necessary studied critique in hip-hop. Still, his long line of hardware — including this year’s Grammys and BET Awards — is further evidence of his introverted stranglehold on pop culture. And, lastly, there is the artform-altering clash with Drake. These were, and still are, the two biggest artists of their generation with a list of accolades that far exceeded copious. Yet, on the biggest stage battle rap has ever seen, Kendrick’s surgical precision with a flurry of chart-topping and scathing records firmly cemented his “boogeyman” moniker. The battle was less about skill and more about a personal vendetta that simmered below the surface for years prior 2024’s volcanic explosion. Drake is still successful, but Kendrick Lamar perhaps permanently removed any aura of invincibility that Pusha T fractured years earlier.

This was the backdrop heading into his Toronto shows. This wasn’t a coronation. It was a confirmation. Atop rap’s pinnacle sits Kendrick Lamar.

Last fall, following the announcement of Kendrick Lamar’s selection to perform at the Super Bowl, he made note of those to publicly support him. “Won the Super Bowl, and Nas the only one to congratulate me,” he rapped of the slight that undoubtedly left him feeling a way on “wacced out murals.” Jay-Z, whose role in the decision to choose Lamar over New Orleans legend Lil Wayne ignited a fierce controversy, said this. “Kendrick Lamar is truly a once-in-a-generation artist and performer. His deep love for hip-hop and culture informs his artistic vision. He has an unparalleled ability to define and influence culture globally. Kendrick’s work transcends music, and his impact will be felt for years to come.”

In 2013, when the remix featuring Jay-Z’s verse on “Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe” dropped, the artwork on Top Dawg Entertainment’s YouTube page featured an image of young Kobe Bryant and his idol Michael Jordan. Like Jay, Kendrick never hid his intentions of wanting to be the greatest his genre has ever seen. And much like Bryant, he never disrespected Jay along the way. The life lessons in Jay-Z’s catalog resonate, albeit sonically different but emotionally identical, in Kendrick’s. But now he looks at the self-proclaimed Marcy Projects hallway loiter eye-to-eye. If Jay-Z is a product of seeing his dreams through that Biggie Smalls never had the opportunity to, Kendrick Lamar is the artistic equivalent of Tupac’s.

So much of hip-hop is a battle of survivor’s remorse and the lives lost along the way, with names like Eazy-E, Heavy D, Nipsey Hussle, Young Dolph, Scott La Rock and more as cautionary tales we’d long love to forget but never will. Kendrick Lamar, however imperfect, celebrates what life should look like, given the opportunity to water the seeds of its creativity. From Jay-Z, Tupac, Biggie, OutKast, Scarface, Ice Cube, Nas or any other artist who has ever flirted with or held the title, Kendrick’s autonomy lives in those conversations as the most prolific and greatest to breathe air into a microphone.

“I absolutely would agree [that Kendrick is one of the greatest vocalists of his generation],” Eminem told famed hip-hop radio personality Sway Calloway in 2022. “Kendrick is at the very top, top tier of lyricists. Not just of this generation, but of all time.”

“I was always looking at Jay[-Z] and Em[inem]. [They] always been the criteria for me,” Kendrick said that same year. “You know they passion for it has always been there. You can still see the hunger in they eyes. I still have that same passion as well. You can’t never feel like you’re content.” 

On stage in Toronto last week, days before his 38th birthday, the realization of Kendrick Lamar had come full circle. It wasn’t only about the pettiness or the headlines. Instead, it was about the culmination of a career the likes of which few, if any, peers have seen. The pursuit of a passion that every creative prays for in that it not only fulfills them but gives something credible to the world around them in the process.

If it wasn’t evident before, it is now and moving forward. Kendrick Lamar is certainly not a savior, but he is rap’s newest greatest of all-time.