Childish Gambino
Gross: $23.4M
Attendance: 197,000 tickets
Shows: 18
All-Genre Rank: N/A
Earlier this week, Billboard revealed its year-end Boxscore charts, ranking the top tours, venues and promoters of 2024. We’re breaking it down further, looking at the biggest live acts, genre by genre. Here, we kick things off with rap.
Hip-hop had its biggest year ever on stage. Rap artists accounted for 5.7% of the top 100 tour grosses in 2024, way up from 2.7% in 2023 and 3.4% in 2022. It’s the genre’s biggest market share ever, with seven acts on the Top Tours chart.
Women played a bigger role than ever, with four of those entries. Previously, there had never been more than one female rapper in the all-genre top 100, which hadn’t happened since 2015. Dating back to the inaugural year-end recap in 1991, only four women had previously appeared on the year-end list, which means that this year’s quartet doubles women’s total representation in just one year.
The year’s biggest rap tour set new records for the highest year-end gross and attendance for a solo rapper, eclipsing Drake’s $141 million last year. Jay-Z’s On The Run II Tour earned and sold more, though that was a co-headline run with Beyoncé, a stadium star in her own right.
Keep reading to check out the 10 highest-grossing tours by rap acts, with such acts qualifying due to recent performance on Billboard’s Top Rap Albums and/or Hot Rap Songs charts. Rankings are determined according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. All reported shows worldwide between Oct. 1, 2023 – Sept. 30, 2024, are eligible.
Gross: $23.4M
Attendance: 197,000 tickets
Shows: 18
All-Genre Rank: N/A
Gross: $27.9M
Attendance: 233,000 tickets
Shows: 21
All-Genre Rank: N/A
Gross: $28.7M
Attendance: 244,000 tickets
Shows: 19
All-Genre Rank: N/A
Gross: $40.2M
Attendance: 336,000 tickets
Shows: 26
All-Genre Rank: No. 76
Gross: $41.8M
Attendance: 304,000 tickets
Shows: 29
All-Genre Rank: No. 70
Gross: $46M
Attendance: 382,000 tickets
Shows: 31
All-Genre Rank: No. 61
Gross: $63.7M
Attendance: 553,000 tickets
Shows: 47
All-Genre Rank: No. 49
Gross: $65.9M
Attendance: 621,000 tickets
Shows: 60
All-Genre Rank: No. 48
Gross: $99.8M
Attendance: 712,000 tickets
Shows: 62
All-Genre Rank: No. 30
Gross: $168.1M
Attendance: 1.4M tickets
Shows: 69
All-Genre Rank: No. 15