Kendrick Lamar & SZA review – a pyrotechnic party of dark and light
Their sets weave together over three hours, welcoming us first into Lamar's incisive (and enjoyably irritable) state-of-the-artform address, filmed austerely in black and white, before blossoming into full colour for SZA's tactile songwriting about exes, bad habits and heart-leaping, interplanetary hope. The contrast is abrupt but high-energy, and when they overlap for duets, everything changes again: Lamar permits himself a broad grin as SZA circles him, looking very much in charge, during the seductive back and forth of Luther.
For Lamar, this tour is about narrative. He arrives on stage, pointedly in the driver's seat of the black GNX from his latest album of the same name. An opening gambit speeds through Wacced Out Murals' laundry list of betrayals by his peers, his arm fixed defensively across his chest; and a painfully abridged King Kunta, which swerves to a halt after its now decade-old Drake dig: 'A rapper with a ghostwriter? What the fuck happened?' Chased by Element, on which he swears allegiance to his craft and, brilliantly, to making it 'look sexy', the sentiment is clear: he's at the top of his game, and he's pissed off by the lack of competition.
Lucky, then, that SZA is here to fight for Glasgow's hearts and minds. Her fairy-grotto set feels like a different planet; dancers dressed as ants writhe as she drapes across the GNX, now covered in vines. Beaming, she gets a huge response to platinum singles such as Kill Bill and Broken Clocks – a woozily gorgeous, millennial take on 9 to 5's work hustle – but it's the grungy double-punch of Scorsese Baby Daddy and F2F that really ignites: dancers with electric guitars slide on their knees as she ad-libs with goosebump-inducing intensity.
Her magic extends to surmounting the disappointing sound quality – overbearing reverb makes it a challenge to pick out Lamar's intricacies, but somehow the echoes suit SZA, who sounds both raw and bracingly powerful.
There are sightline issues too, with the stage's wide runways forcing the crowd to the extreme left and right, making it almost impossible to see inside a central inset, but the atmosphere – like the near-constant pyrotechnics – remains heated. Lamar's pulverising Drake diss Not Like Us shakes the stands and likely Hampden's neighbouring tenements, the crowd roaring that viral 'a-minooor' allegation.
The set closes on Gloria, a gentle duet about a shared commitment to artistry: 'I see you, you see me,' croons SZA. But it should have been All the Stars – when they teetered on two enormous risers for the Black Panther hit, separated by a sea of fans, it felt like a genuinely historic celebration of their individual achievements and the elevating power of their friendship.
Kendrick Lamar and SZA: Grand National Tour is in the UK and Europe until 9 August
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