Weezy F. Baby has topped the charts again. This time it’s for having the highest grossing Hip-Hop tour of the year. According to Billboard, seventy-eight Lil Wayne headlining arena and amphitheater concerts in North America from Dec. 14, 2008, through Sept. 6, 2009, grossed approximately $42 million and drew nearly 804,000 fans.
“It’s definitely one of the biggest in the last couple of years,” stated Lil Wayne tour producer and tour business manager Shawn Gee. Noting that Haymon Events/Live Nation was the exclusive tour promoter for all of the shows, he added, “Our plan was to prove that Wayne was a viable headlining arena artist.”
Also according to Billboard, Wayne’s tour is the most lucrative they’ve ever tracked. Number 2 was Hova and Mary J. Blige’s tour, which grossed $34.6 million and drew 310,694 fans in 28 shows. Kanye West’s 2008 “Glow In the Dark” tour comes in third, having pulled in $30.8 million from 49 concerts that attracted 507,853 fans.
The tours were in support of Lil Wanye’s 2008 album, Tha Carter III, which has sold 3.2 million copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The rapper’s oft-delayed next album, Rebirth, is due Nov. 24.
