Kicking off the “Dedication Tour” at the County Coliseum, Lil Wayne and Rae Sremmurd made their first of 19 stops on Jan. 21. This is the first time Lil Wayne made a trip to the Sun City. He definitely made it a memorable one.
While the first opener, S-8ight, was a huge snore, Rae Sremmurd came in and fulfilled the role of an opening act by hyping up the crowd. Throughout their entire set, the duo was jumping and dancing to their blaring music blasting throughout the arena.
After Sway Lee excited the crowd by degrading Donald Trump, they got their set rolling by performing their first hit by the same name as the controversial politician. Songs like “Throw Sum Mo,” “No Flex Zone,” and “This Could Be Us” rallied the crowd around the duo. Even though their up-beat music was worth the watch, sometimes it felt as if everyone was listening to an iTunes song preview- they would only performed one verse of the song and then transitioned to the next song. Slim Jimmy of Rae Sremmurd called for everyone in the audience to shine their raise their lighters or cellphones up as the group wrapped up their set with “No Type.”
Unlike Rae Sremmurd’s exuberant entrance, Lil Wayne took the stage with ease and poise. Transitioning through songs such as “Sorry for the Wait,” “I’m Going In,” and “Blunt Blowin,” Lil’ Wheezy seemed awed by the spirit of the crowd.
Then Wayne traveled back in time and played a series of his old songs. “6 Foot 7 Foot” had the entire crowd bouncing to tracks from the album “Tha Carter IV.” He played classic tracks that he was featuring on such as “The Motto (Yolo)” by Drake.
The best song of the night performed by Wayne was “Nightmares of the Bottom,” an extremely underrated track from the fourth of the Carter album series. The soft piano intro mixed with a hard snare made for a perfect sound to hear in a concert setting. Wayne’s verses on the song featured a very raw yet energetic tone.
In a portion of the concert, Wayne performed songs off his various mixtapes, “Dedication 5,” “No Ceilings 2,” and “88 Keyz”. During this part of the concert, he rapped heavily and did not rely on hooks to attract the audience.
After teasing the crowd by leaving, Lil Wayne finished with “A Milli,” “John,” and “Truffle Butter”. “A Milli” was one of the biggest crowd pleasers, besides when Wayne preformed “Lollipop” early on into his show. For his grand finale, Wayne brought out his entire Young Money Team and did “No Worries.”
Throughout the night, Wayne never seemed to lose energy and was all-around entertaining. Even though he is not highly sought out in today’s rap world, Wayne proved that he is still undoubtedly a hip-hop legend.
