Music
From originators of the culture to the newest names, Australia is always ready for a hip-hop tour. Spanning 1988 to 2019, this list revisits some of the game-changers.
Australia loves a hip-hop gig. Sure, sometimes the sound mix is wrong or the vibe is off or there’s too much of the new album. But when hip-hop actually clicks live, the experience can be transcendent. That’s why we keep coming back.
While Australia’s homegrown hip-hop scene is more vibrant than ever, we never tire of international visitors. A typical year (and no, 2020 isn’t typical) brings us every kind of hip-hop act, from the biggest stadium-fillers to the latest internet rappers.
Over the decades, Australia has been front-row for hip-hop’s boldest live shows. Sometimes we witness the full arc of an artist’s career over multiple tours, and sometimes we only get one chance. Our isolation from the rest of the world means we can’t be blasé or too cool. As countless visiting rappers attest, Australia goes hard.
This list time travels back to 25 iconic hip-hop tours from 1988 to 2019. It’s by no means a definitive account of the ‘best’ shows seen in these parts -- what constitutes a great hip-hop performance is in the eye of the beholder.
However, these 25 tours, arranged here chronologically, are essential markers in our decades-long love affair.
Run-D.M.C. (1988)
In 1986, a hip-hop crew from Queens, New York made history. Run-D.M.C.’s Raising Hell was the first rap album to go platinum, introducing the group to pop success. Run-D.M.C.’s next album, Tougher Than Leather (1988), doubled down on the complex wordplay and rock guitars.
A SPIN magazine profile in May 1988 began, “Since breaking hip-hop to middle America with Raising Hell, Run-D.M.C. and crew have been shot at, crashed in, countersued, and blamed for the problems of today’s youth. It’s not easy being the world’s greatest rock band.”
Later that year, Run-D.M.C. visited Australia for a trailblazing tour, including shows at Festival Hall and Metro in Melbourne and Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion.
DJ Katch of Brisbane beats collective Resin Dogs can vividly recall the scene. “The club I worked at in Brisbane booked a bus trip down to the Sydney show,” he tells Red Bull. “They put me in charge of the bus with 40 crew, and it was definitely a booze-up. The shows were dope, with all the classics, and they had a DJ comp on the first night.”
UK rap ambassador Derek B and his Brooklyn-born offsider DJ Scratch were also along for the trip. “I remember going to the record store meet-and-greet to see Jam Master Jay and Derek B, and the road was packed for hours waiting to see the Run-D.M.C. crew arrive,” DJ Katch adds.
In Melbourne, the Queens crew also appeared on ABC TV’s morning show, The Factory, performing to an unmistakably ‘80s crowd of Australian youth. Incredibly, the clip now lives on via YouTube.
Beastie Boys (1992)
Australia and the Beastie Boys always got along. The New Yorkers headlined Livid in 1994 and Big Day Out in 2005, in between standalone tours. (They visited twice in 1999 on the Hello Nasty world tour, after the first run of Australian dates was called short by a family emergency -- notably, those dates featured honorary member Mixmaster Mike on the decks.)
However, fans who caught the trio in September 1992 had reason to feel really smug. At that time, MCA, Mike D and Ad-Rock were riding high from the release of Check Your Head, although still niche enough for intimate venues. That’s how the Beastie Boys ended up in sweatboxes like Sydney’s Selinas and Perth’s Berlin Club, throwing down for a crush of rowdy teens.
Their stage was set up like a rock band, with a drum-kit, guitars, keys and imposing speaker stacks. One minute it was a rap set, with three MCs on the mic, and the next an all-out assault of thrash guitar. In other words, the purest expression of Check Your Head.
Coolio, Naughty By Nature and House Of Pain (1996)
Coolio and L.V. 's ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’ was inescapable in 1995. The song began its rise as the signature track from Michelle Pfeiffer vehicle Dangerous Minds, but it soon left the movie in the dust. A banger to this day, ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’ went to No. 1 around the world, including in Australia, and won Coolio his one and only Grammy.
It was a big deal, then, that the Compton rapper deigned to visit us in his world-beating year of 1996. The Cool Naughty Pain triple-bill featured Coolio alongside Naughty By Nature, fresh from the Poverty’s Paradise album, and ‘Jump Around’ hitmakers House Of Pain.
“It was a real ‘spectacular’, unifying the West and East Coast rap traditions,” recalls Melbourne-based journalist Cyclone Wehner. “I think it demonstrated to the Australian music industry that hip-hop now rivalled rock as live arena entertainment here.”
“Coolio was fantastic,” Wehner adds, “but I have to say Naughty were the pinnacle in Melbourne. One of the best live acts I've seen.” As it turned out, Naughty By Nature forged the deepest bond with Australia, returning here frequently over the next decades.
Public Enemy (1998)
Big Day Out dominated Australian summers throughout the ‘90s and 2000s, but Brisbane-born Livid was a worthy challenger. Launching in 1989, the festival soon expanded to other cities, with lineups that accurately captured the Gen X rock moment.
After an Ill Communication-era Beastie Boys played in 1994, Livid invited Public Enemy to headline its 1998 edition. The New York rap troupe was the outlier on a line-up also featuring Pulp, Sonic Youth, Regurgitator and The Living End -- not that they cared.
At the time, Public Enemy‘s seminal album, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, was ten years old, and their output hadn’t slowed. In fact, the group landed in Australia just months after soundtracking Spike Lee’s underappreciated basketball movie, He Got Game. Naturally, they brought the noise to Livid, delivering full-blooded versions of ‘Welcome to the Terrordome’, ‘Fight The Power’, ‘Don’t Believe The Hype’ and more.
The shows featured Terminator X on a raised DJ tower while Chuck D and Flavor Flav ducked and weaved between their uniformed S1W dancers. While in Australia, Public Enemy also stopped by ABC TV’s anarchic Saturday morning show, Recovery. The clash of two chaotic energies -- Recovery’s Dylan Lewis and the inimitable Flavor Flav -- underscored a haywire performance in which no one quite knew what was happening.
Snoop Dogg (1998)
In December 1998, Snoop Dogg brought his smoked-out West Coast rap to Australia for the first time. By then, the G-funk original had released two undeniable albums as Snoop Doggy Dogg, Doggystyle (1993) and Tha Doggfather (1996). His third, 1998’s Da Game Is to Be Sold, Not to Be Told, sharpened his name to Snoop Dogg.
The Australian dates, overseen by Frontier Touring, saw Snoop play Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney over one whirlwind week. After the first Sydney show at the Enmore Theatre sold out, a second night was quickly added, with Australian DJ Nino Brown on support.
“That show was huge for me,” Nino tells Red Bull. “DJ Dexta was the tour DJ, but for some reason he couldn’t do the second show, so I was lucky enough to get the call. It was my first time on stage at the Enmore, and at the time it seemed so big.”
In 1998, the murders of The Notorious B.I.G. and 2Pac were still raw, and Nino recalls a charged atmosphere around the show. “Snoop had armed security with him,” he adds.
The rapper also had an incredibly vital setlist at the time, from ‘Gin and Juice’ to ‘Lodi Dodi’ to ‘Doggz Gonna Get Ya’.
Journalist Cyclone Wehner clearly recalls the Festival Hall show. “People were so amped to see him,” she tells Red Bull. “It was an incredibly diverse crowd with a big Western suburbs community spirit. It sparked a lot of racialised discourse afterwards in the media about 'fights', but I saw no fights. The energy was palpable and positive, and Snoop was great -- of course.”
Eminem (2001)
An avowed pot-stirrer right from his Slim Shady EP in 1997, Eminem couldn’t have planned a better build-up to his first Australian tour.
Michael Gudinski’s Frontier Touring booked the rapper for a fly-by visit in July 2001: Thursday at Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena, Friday at the still-new Sydney Super Dome, then out of the country. According to BBC News at the time, Frontier Touring paid him $1 million per show, then the highest-ever fee for an indoor gig in Australia. As a result, tickets topped $100.
After The Slim Shady LP (1999) and The Marshall Mathers LP (2000), Eminem was the furious, foul-mouthed avatar of teenagers everywhere. His albums delighted in comic nihilism, spraying invective at record company execs, moralising pearl-clutchers and, most violently, his wife Kim.
For such a brief tour, Eminem inspired an outsized stink. The Australian Family Association attempted to block his visa, citing his offensive lyrics and two gun-related charges. Politicians also joined the fray. Liberal MP Peter Slipper, for one, decried Eminem’s lyrics as “despicable” and “appalling”. (Slipper would later resign as Speaker when his misogynistic text messages went public.)
Despite these protests, Eminem was granted entry to Australia, where he reportedly spent his limited downtime fishing, tenpin bowling and visiting the solarium.
Onstage in Sydney and Melbourne, the bleach-blonde star played up his bad boy image. His props included an electric chair and a murderous chainsaw -- with its teeth removed to meet Australian safety standards. Supported by his Detroit posse D12, Eminem flew through early hits like ‘Criminal’, ‘The Way I Am’, ‘The Real Slim Shady’ and ‘My Name Is’, allowing time for video skits and hokey theatrics.
“I want to buy a house and move here, but I don't think your Prime Minister would like it,” he told the crowd at Rod Laver Arena, basking in the arena-wide cheers and boos.
Eminem later admitted that his early 2000s were blurred by substance abuse, telling Rolling Stone, “The bigger the shows got, the bigger the after-parties.” After leaving Australia, his next evolution included a dramatic movie role in 8 Mile and a slick, not-so-jokey album, The Eminem Show.
The rapper waited a decade before touring here again in 2011 as a mainstream superstar. Three years sober at the time, Eminem told the stadium crowds that he planned to remember this tour. Three years later, he was back in Australia’s biggest venues for the Rapture Tour, joined by Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole and Action Bronson. The one-time menace to Australia was now a welcome money-spinner.
Jurassic 5 and The Roots (2003)
Good time rap crew Jurassic 5 can always count on a hero’s welcome in Australia. With a laidback rapport onstage and a no-fat setlist, the group was a natural fit for our summer festivals. In 2003, J5 toured with Livid Festival, playing to huge crowds right before Linkin Park on the main stage.
That year’s Livid line-up also included Philadelphia’s Legendary Roots Crew, whose brilliant fifth album, Phrenology, was under a year old. (It also featured ‘The Seed 2.0’, a single built to excel live.) Combining these two titans of indie hip-hop for sideshows was a no-brainer. Both groups kept coming -- J5 was back for Splendour in 2004, and made sure to hit Australia on their 2014 comeback tour -- but this double-bill was pitch-perfect programming.
Gang Starr (2004)
Few acts in hip-hop can rival Gang Starr’s ‘90s run. Between DJ Premier’s golden-age beats and Guru’s agile, straight-talking raps, their partnership spun gold.
In 2004, Australian festival newcomer Good Vibrations snagged Gang Starr to play alongside the likes of Nitin Sawhney, Moloko and Blackalicious. At the time, Premier and Guru were touring The Ownerz (2003), which would end up as their final album together. Onstage at Good Vibrations and sideshows in Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne, their energy together was a thrill.
In retrospect, the vibe was bittersweet. Guru distanced himself from Premier in 2006, before his death in 2010 after a battle with cancer. Preemo has stayed committed to his partner’s legacy, building 2019’s One of the Best Yet around a trove of unreleased Guru raps. Fans who saw the true Gang Starr in 2004 have a claim to something special.
N.E.R.D. (2004)
In the heady days of 2004, Pharrell Williams was in his element. The Neptunes, his production duo with Chad Hugo, was already celebrated for its work on Kelis’s Kaleidoscope (1999) and Justin Timberlake’s Justified (2002). Later, Pharrell aced his debut solo single, ‘Frontin’’, featuring a Jay-Z co-sign. Then came Fly Or Die, the breakthrough album from Pharrell and Hugo’s band, N.E.R.D. Fly Or Die captured the 2004 zeitgeist to a tee, pairing the crisp, funk-driven Neptunes sound with rock swagger.
A couple of months after the album dropped, N.E.R.D. played Sydney’s Enmore Theatre and Melbourne’s Forum. Both dates sold out in a flash. The shows featured Pharrell and N.E.R.D. offsider Shay Haley with then-backing band Spymob, who were signed to The Neptunes’ Startrak label. (Chad Hugo, as ever, stayed home.)
Onstage, Spymob held down a tight groove and Shay was a charismatic number two, but all eyes were on the frontman. Pharrell was at his most magnetic, easing from heartthrob falsetto to (shirtless) rock star moves. The setlist breezed through N.E.R.D. jams and a medley of Pharrell-assisted hits, peaking with a raucous encore of ‘Lapdance’.
With the heights of his solo pop success still to come, this is the last time we’d see Pharrell in touching distance.
M.I.A. (2006)
M.I.A. had one hell of a 2005. After the promise of her Diplo-assisted mixtape, Piracy Funds Terrorism Volume 1, the British-Sri Lankan rapper’s debut album, Arular, arrived to widespread acclaim. Its fierce mix of dancehall, baile funk, hip-hop and political zeal was unlike anything else released that year.
With its finger on the pulse, Big Day Out booked M.I.A. for that summer’s festival tour. By January 2006, she was a must-see act on a bill headlined by The White Stripes and Iggy and the Stooges. Her fiery, punkish sets in the Boiler Room featured her then-boyfriend Diplo on the decks. At the time, the future superstar DJ didn’t even make the poster.
In Melbourne, The Age interviewed Diplo (describing him as "less recognisable" than James Murphy and the members of Franz Ferdinand), and found the producer in quite a sulky mood. "It's really hard," Diplo said of touring as his girlfriend's wingman. "I guess when we're on tour like this I just have to totally sacrifice who I am, because we both have a career. Like, I'm not just like a dime-a-dozen DJ guy that she can pick up anywhere. I really helped to create her sound."
Needless to say, the relationship didn't last, but M.I.A. made her mark.
Kanye West (2006)
In March 2006, Kanye West was scheduled to support U2 on its Vertigo tour of Australia. At the time, the Chicago-repping star was evolving out of his 'backpack rap' cohort -- the somewhat fuzzy term alloted to socially-conscious acts like Talib Kweli, A Tribe Called Quest and Common. West had already released two virtuosic albums: his 2004 debut, The College Dropout, and its 2005 follow-up, Late Registration. He was mercurial and hyper-confident in his genius, but still grounded in reality.
As it turned out, U2 postponed their trip due to a family illness, but West came anyway. His 'Touch The Sky' headline tour kicked off in Auckland, then hit Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney. In addition to a show at the Hordern Pavilion, the rapper put in a “special request” to play Sydney Opera House.
That tour-closing performance saw West backed by a full band, vocalists and a string section including a harpist. Drawing on his already-deep catalogue, West put on a generous, committed show under the Concert Hall’s vaulted ceiling. Later that month, he made his debut on the Coachella main stage -- an electric (if somewhat chaotic) moment that’s captured in the festival’s documentary at the 1:00:00 mark.
This was a charmed chapter in the career of Kanye West: before the shock of his mother Donda’s death the next year and his regrettable stage invasion at the MTV VMAs in 2009. As West’s albums grew in scope and budget, so too did his live productions, making him an expensive get for Australian promoters. (In 2012, he headlined Big Day Out with the opulent My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy stage show, before returning in 2014 on the Yeezus tour.)
West's Opera House show also opened the door for acts like Lauryn Hill, Ice Cube, Skepta and Wu-Tang Clan to turn the usually staid venue into a hip-hop church.
Jay-Z and Rihanna (2006)
In 2010, rap mogul Jay-Z visited Australia to perform an unusual task: warming up stadiums on U2's 360° tour. His sets, performed in daylight on a scaled-down stage, weren’t the best showcase for a decades-deep discography.
Luckily, the true Hov heads got their wish four years earlier on the Roc Tha Block tour. At his October 2006 arena shows in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, Jay-Z delivered a slick 90-minute greatest hits set, including the timeless ‘Dirt Off Your Shoulder’ and ‘Big Pimpin’’. (Beyoncé joined him in Australia, but not onstage.)
In retrospect, the Roc Tha Block tour was equally notable for featuring a then-ascendant Rihanna in support. Coming after Ne-Yo on the night’s running order, her understated performances only hinted at the pop phenomenon to come.
A Tribe Called Quest (2010)
For years, A Tribe Called Quest eluded Australia's stages. Then, in 2010, it finally happened. Long-running hip-hop promoter Slingshot and boutique touring company Niche Productions joined forces to book the legendary group for midweek shows at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion and Melbourne’s Festival Hall.
The year before, we’d seen Q-Tip as a last-minute replacement for The Roots at the Good Vibrations festival. This time, though, promised the full ATCQ experience: Q-Tip, Phife Dawg, Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Jarobi White.
The shows marked the 20-year anniversary of the group's debut album, Peoples Travels and Instinctive Paths of Rhythm, which made for a classic-stacked setlist. Some fans griped about the quick-fire set and the impersonal scale of the venues, but the energy fizzing between the MCs was undiminished. (Amazingly, that rapport was still there on the group's final album, We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service, released soon after Phife Dawg's death in 2016.)
The crowds at both the Hordern and Festival Hall knew they were witnessing a rare alignment of planets, and the reaction to ‘Scenario’ and ‘Can I Kick It?’ was suitably deafening.
Odd Future (2011)
In June 2011, the scrappy rap collective billed as OFWGKTA arrived in Australia on a wave of hype. The group, led by chief fire-starter Tyler, The Creator, had only self-released a couple of mixtapes by that point. If you knew Odd Future, though, you knew about their raucous live shows.
Sure enough, the group came in hot at the Vivid Live festival, turning The Studio at Sydney Opera House into a seething mass of bodies. From there, it was on to sold-out shows in Melbourne and Brisbane for more crowd-surfing and a setlist heavy on Tyler, The Creator originals. (Tyler casually declared Brisbane racist via Twitter, gifting a few mainstream media outlets an easy story.)
Later, on the 2012 Big Day Out tour, Odd Future was dropped from the Auckland stop in a reaction to their homophobic lyrics. Tyler responded petulantly, and another media circus was born. However, the group’s run as censorship-flaunting renegades could only last so long. Recent years have seen the members of Odd Future build a steadier relationship with Australia: from Tyler and Earl Sweatshirt’s solo gigs to Syd’s alt-R&B crew The Internet.
MF DOOM (2011)
March 2011 was like a second Christmas for Australia’s hip-hop buffs. After years of waiting, the enigmatic MF DOOM finally graced us with his first-ever headline tour.
The size and no-frills vibe of the venues -- such as The Espy in Melbourne and The Gov in Adelaide -- seemed to suit the masked MC. DOOM’s sets pinged between Madvillain, DANGERDOOM, guest verses on the likes of De La Soul’s ‘Rock Co.Kane Flow’ and solo cuts like ‘One Beer’, ‘Kon Queso’ and ‘Gazillion Ear’.
The sweaty, amped fans hung on every word -- even when those words were muffled by bass. DOOM was back the next year on a double-bill with Ghostface Killah, but there’s nothing like the first time.
Kendrick Lamar (2012)
Soon after Kendrick Lamar released his debut album, Section.80, the Sydney-based touring agency Niche Productions booked the rapper for a run of Australian shows in December 2012. Niche announced the tour in the same week that Lamar dropped his second album, good kid, m.A.A.d city. The timing couldn't have been better.
With fans clamouring for tickets, Sydney’s show was moved from the Metro Theatre to the Enmore, while Melbourne upsized to the Palace Theatre. Even with the venue changes, the shows felt remarkably intimate for such a lauded talent. "His buzz was already huge," recalls Sydney selector Captain Franco, who DJed at the Enmore Theatre show. "They probably could have sold three more Enmores, but due to the global tour routing they couldn't get more over the line."
The sets in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth were an expert cycle through early Kendrick, complete with floor-shaking versions of 'Bitch, Don't Kill My Vibe', 'Swimming Pools (Drank)' and 'Ronald Reagan Era (His Evils)'.
The rapper next appeared on Eminem’s 2014 Australian stadium tour, then returned in 2016 to headline Byron Bay Bluesfest and his own arena shows. Kendrick’s always on-point, but his star-making debut ranks in the very top tier of Australian hip-hop tours.
KRS-One (2012)
How do you convince a plane-phobic rapper to tour Australia? Just buy them a spot on an ocean liner. That's exactly how stalwart promoter Slingshot convinced hip-hop pioneer KRS-One to make the epic journey back in 2012. The Bronx-born MC spent 24 days motoring from San Francisco to Sydney, then bounded off the ship ready to deliver a hip-hop education.
His shows went deep into the culture, weaving booming freestyles and history lessons around foundational texts like ‘Sound of da Police’ and Boogie Down Productions' 'South Bronx'. (Not to mention the frequent shouts of, “Real hip-hop!”) Even on his days off, KRS-One kept up the hustle as his genre’s flame-keeper. Only a man with a mission will gladly spend over three weeks at sea.
Nicki Minaj (2012)
Back in 2012, Nicki Minaj was a pop star between worlds. For some fans, she was the creator of high-sheen confections like the then-fresh single, ‘Starships’. For others, she was the genre chameleon who fused pop and hip-hop on her debut album, Pink Friday (2010). Others still considered her a hard-hitting rapper (case in point: that incendiary verse on Kanye West’s ‘Monster’) who didn’t go hard often enough.
In May of that year, Minaj chose Australia as the kick-off for her Pink Friday world tour. Despite a $100 ticket price, the shows swiftly sold out. (In Sydney, she performed at the intimate-for-her Hordern Pavilion.) Just as Pink Friday marked a rare No. 1 album by a female rapper on the US charts, Minaj’s sellout Australian debut was a milestone.
Fans in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane were the first to see the candy-coloured Pink Friday production, complete with dancers and costume changes. The slight cheapness of the stage design was made up for by Minaj’s tongue-in-cheek exuberance. She returned to Australia later in 2012, this time playing much larger venues across the country. The days of catching Nicki Minaj in a 6,000-capacity venue were already history.
Run The Jewels, Earl Sweatshirt and Danny Brown (2014)
Earlier in this list, we revisited Coolio, House Of Pain and Naughty By Nature’s ‘Cool Naughty Pain’ tour in 1996. If that triple-bill was the mid-‘90s in a nutshell, 2014 had its own version -- albeit on a very different vibe.
That year’s Laneway Festival featured three of the brightest names in hip-hop: Earl Sweatshirt, Run The Jewels and Danny Brown. In between festival stops, that trifecta peeled away for standalone shows at Sydney’s Enmore and Melbourne’s Palace Theatre.
Each act was at peak internet approval after releasing year-best albums in 2013: Run The Jewels’ self-titled debut, Danny Brown’s Old and Earl Sweatshirt’s Doris. A young, charged-up crowd packed out both shows, sending the energy levels sky-high. This was one of those lightning in a bottle lineups that can only belong to its moment in time.
OutKast (2014)
For OutKast partners André 3000 and Big Boi, 2014 was one giant roller coaster. That April, the pair kicked off a comeback tour as Coachella’s Friday night headliner. Following the creative peaks of Stankonia (2000) and Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (2003), OutKast had parted ways after 2006's less-stellar Idlewild.
After nearly a decade apart pursuing solo careers, the Coachella set was a sometimes uneven reunion. The setlist hit all the major notes, from 'B.O.B.' to 'Aquemini' to 'Roses', but the performance itself struggled to gel. Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately, given André's conflicted feelings about the tour), they had a lot of shows left to get it right.
OutKast's itinerary of over 40 festivals included a fly-by visit to Byron for Splendour In The Grass. As their only Australian appearance, there was a lot riding on the duo's Friday night set in the natural amphitheatre. The biggest crowd of the weekend watched OutKast (complete with a full band and backing singers) power through a tight setlist that took in nostalgic anthems, solo cuts, oddball banter and a few dull spots.
Nothing, though, could top 20,000-odd voices belting out ‘Hey Ya!’ under a clear night sky.
Nas (2015)
Australia has been fortunate enough to see New York rap icon Nas on multiple occasions. The MC toured here with Lauryn Hill in 2019, supported Kanye West on his 2008 arena shows and headlined theatres in 2009 with Chali 2na, Qbert and MC Supernatural.
However, no Nas visit has fired up fans quite like his Illmatic anniversary tour in January 2015. The run included a headline slot at Melbourne’s boutique Sugar Mountain Festival, two sold-out shows at Sydney’s Enmore Theatre and a rare stop in Adelaide.
Revisiting his 1994 masterpiece, Illmatic, Nas showed no signs of fatigue. Relaxed and charismatic, he journeyed through his debut, also finding time for later hits like ‘Hate Me Now’, ‘Made You Look’ and ‘Street Dreams’. The high-octane shows were a perfect match for the sweaty height of summer, reaffirming Nas as one of the best to ever do it.
Drake (2015)
In 2015, Drake was one of three headliners at the now-defunct Future Music Festival, going up against Avicii and The Prodigy on competing stages. Five years on, it’s hard to imagine the 6 God taking a gig where the audience is split.
In between the festivals, Drake also played his first-ever Australian shows. The arena dates hit right after the release of his mixtape, If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late, and before 2016’s navel-gazing Views.
The setlists covered the full breadth of his career to that point, hitting albums Thank Me Later (2010), Take Care (2011) and Nothing Was The Same (2013), plus fan favourites, guest verses and mixtape cuts. Big-ticket acts often coast on the bare minimum in Australia, but Drake was committed to delivering an all-in show.
Wu-Tang Clan (2016)
It’s not so simple to single out one Wu-Tang Clan tour as the most impactful. That opinion might change from fan to fan. Each time the sprawling collective has visited Australia, it’s never clear what version we’ll get. In 2011, we saw raucous, often shambolic shows from a Wu without Method Man and RZA. In 2018, a more rounded cast made it to Australia -- but only played the Sydney Opera House in an exclusive four-show run.
Perhaps the best showcase for the Wu-Tang Clan, then, occurred in February 2016. The tour was a gamble for the team behind the Beyond The Valley festival. “Wu-Tang was actually our first tour,” Beyond The Valley founder Nick Greco tells Red Bull. “It was such a big risk because we didn't know how many members would show up.”
Despite worries of last-minute no-shows, key members RZA, Ghostface Killah, Raekwon and GZA came through. The sets weren’t all polished (what Wu-Tang show is?), but the atmosphere was ecstatic. At the final show in Brisbane, the group invited Greco and his business partners onstage for a photo. “RZA explained [to the crowd] the story of how we started working together,” Greco recalls. “That tour will be hard to beat.”
Stormzy (2017)
Australia has a kinship with rappers out of the UK, whether it’s heady trailblazers like Roots Manuva and Tricky, conscious newcomers like Loyle Carner or festival draws like The Streets and M.I.A.
Then there’s the grime crew. Dizzee Rascal has made a few trips out since his all-killer debut, Boy in da Corner, followed by the likes of Wiley, Skepta and Giggs. However, it’s not every week we get a future Glastonbury headliner playing theatre shows.
In July 2017, fast-rising grime star Stormzy made his Splendour In The Grass debut, packing out the Mix Up Stage on Sunday night. The buzz for Stormzy’s set carried through to his sideshows, which all sold out in rapid succession. Hot on the heels of his debut album, Gang Signs & Prayers, the shows blazed through heaters like ‘Bad Boys’, ‘Shut Up’ and ‘Big for Your Boots’.
Stormzy returned to Australia that summer on a meteoric path to Glastonbury 2019, where he became the first black British solo artist to close the Pyramid stage. Stormzy’s return, whenever it really happens, will be the catharsis we need.
Eminem (2019)
18 years after his heated Australian debut, Eminem returned here for the Rapture tour as a mainstream stadium act. The elder statesman we saw in 2019 was a long way from the raw talent heard on The Slim Shady LP. Sure, Eminem stayed angry, but now his targets included mumble rappers, online critics and Trump voters.
After the shaky reception to his pop star-laden 2017 album, Revival, Eminem returned to rap essentials on 2018’s Kamikaze. The album set the stage for Eminem’s biggest-ever Australian shows. In fact, he set a new venue attendance record for the Melbourne Cricket Ground, packing 80,708 fans into the arena. (The previous record was set by 2009’s Sound Relief benefit.)
The shows saw Eminem rip through a career-spanning setlist, backed by a live band, his hype man Mr. Porter and guests including Skylar Grey and Royce da 5’9”. It was a hip-hop gig as a big-budget spectacle, and each of the four stadium shows sold out. Love or hate him, Eminem’s the only rapper who can pull those numbers.
Jack Tregoning is a freelance writer for Billboard, the Recording Academy/GRAMMYs and Red Bull Music. He tweets at @JackTregoning
