There’s been two major, highly priced and ticketed concert events in my calendar for the year – Beyoncé and Mr Kendrick Lamar with Sza in a joint tour that he manifested in his most recent and hater-ish, five star album GNX (“all I ever wanted was a black Grand National, f*** being rational, give ’em what they ask for”).
Getting to the venues has been a bop this year since Tottenham Hotspur Stadium is a stone throws away for me by the shortest bus route ever. I always look forward to passing through the cute, low key but large enough Bruce Castle Park just before reaching the stadium and food trucks.
My boyfriend and I both took half days at work (our offices are also now walking distance from each other), mobilised with buzzball drinks and my personal favourite, a Cherry B tonic wine, and got back to mine in time to sift through three to four choice of full outfits I left laid out for myself in the morning.
Outfits
Looking through the clock app, TikTok, for inspiration is usually where I start – sometimes Pinterest can be an alternative, but for the sake of time and immediacy I stuck to quick videos. Where TikTok is my new Google, it led me to a sea of baggy styles in the fashion of SZA and Kendrick Lamar. Concert goers, particulary in the North America and Canada leg of the tour, opted for baggy jeans or jorts, trainer socks with sneakers (Jordans), baseball jackets, cargos, or baggy sports tops (NFL) combined with mini tennis skirts and the trainer combo.
A lot of the sports and American-influenced style comes from the marketing of the co-headline tour itself following Kendrick performing at the Super Bowl with SZA as a guest to the R&B singer sporting baggy NFL tops, and the duo being known for their baggy trousers and cinched in waist looks.
For accessories, bandanas and a few fluffy bucket hats appeared – also in true SZA style – alongside hoop earrings and y2k thin belts.
For my outfit then, after being torn between wearing my first jorts borrowed from my housemate and friend, I decided to go with my blue dad jeans – and I’m barely ever caught outside in jeans – with a little brown zebra-patterned crop top, braless, my orange/red Nike Cortez trainers which a few others were wearing, my tan fluffy bucket hat and a dark brown bandana tied onto the front of my jeans.
Merchandise
Arriving early to the stadium, due to standing tickets this time, meant that we could enter the official merchandise store for the Hotspurs – which is turned into the musical act’s – by 5.30pm rather than at the end of the concert right before it shuts and has amassed an even longer queue.
From the outside of the store, one t-shirt caught my eye for its graffiti, air brushed design and featuring both artists on it with the tour dates on the back. The other t-shirts were largely in part for SZA only, but I’d actually come for both artists who I’m a fan of and if I were to get merch at all, it made sense that it would be memorabilia for both.
The security check your bags and hold them for you as you walk through the detectors akin to an airport, but this is also to enter the merch store which is outside of the stadium itself. Luckily alcoholic drinks are excused at this point because you have to go through this all over again at your gate entrance when you come back out.
Cutting to the chase – the prices are eye-watering, not too far different from Cowboy Carter’s merch. The main difference is there was actually a t-shirt I’d drop the £50-55 (well I would be treated to) for. Hoodies sat at £110 and baseball/trucker hats were the usual £60 or so. Now, remember the one t-shirt I said caught my eye? There was a queue just to reach that one design in the corner. Everyone had the same like minds, which fits having the same music taste that brought us all to the same place. When I weaved through, I found that this ‘Gloria’ cityscape/GNX car and SZA bug t-shirt was only remaining in sizes L and XL. Luckily, the large fits me in a baggy oversized tee way which is the look you’d be going for in this context. Once I was walking around with this, another lady asked me where I got the t-shirt from, it was genuinely going like hot cakes and this was as early as 5.30pm when the concert was due to begin in just over two hours.
Three-hour performance
Getting to the nitty-gritty.
Like Beyoncé, the R&B and hip hop pairing put on a three hours performance – which took me and my poor feet by surprise – alternating between each other’s acts in three parts for an impeccable 52-track set list from roughly 7.45pm to 10.40pm. This included charming overlaps when Kendrick’s section would conclude with a song that SZA appears in (such as ‘All the Stars’ from Marvel’s Black Panther), allowing her to reenter the stage for a duo performance and for the rapper to then exit the stage at the end of that song. This continued in vice versa where SZA would conclude her Ctrl part of the show with ‘Doves in the Wind’ – and ’30 for 30′ from the SOS deluxe, LANA – both featuring the Californian rapper, so he could join the songstress before she headed out to change and have a breather during his next act.
The main takeaways was the contrast in the crowd. The usual suspects of tall English lads were up front, ready to make a mosh pit to Kendrick’s anthems, then there were groups of shorter teen girls waiting for SZA and craning our necks to see. In the midst of this, were heterosexual couples where the guy might be there for Kendrick and the girl for SZA, sending the men mute when she came out, with some of the lads in front of us saying that they “didn’t know the words to this one” when I was trying to not break out of my trance listening to her rendition of ‘Blind’ from SOS. A lot of the times I found myself one of the few people in the rear standing pitch section screaming out to SZA’s ballads and Ctrl hits (I thought that was a widely acclaimed debut?) – definitely ones for me, myself, and I time as opposed to a stratospheric stage. The vast majority were waiting to get hyped up again to Mr Lamar. Outside of these groups were fans who were there for both artists. None of the reviews I’ve seen so far have noted this, but I know that this group existed because I was one of them – and a few mutuals on my Instagram that went for both.
What a privilege it was to be able to see this run of songs. SZA completely covered all bases and even harped back to ‘Consideration’ where she appeared on Rihanna’s ANTI album – for many of us, this is where we first came to hear her voice. Although I believe SZA is best suited to smaller arenas, her voice filled the stadium and she was a beautiful addition to Kendrick’s track ‘LOVE’ as a replacement for Zacari from DAMN.
In terms of the GOAT himself, he held the night in the palm of his hands. Moving from lyric to lyric with ease and incredible breath control, Kendrick showed why he’s become the GOAT and that he can absolutely own a stadium on his own. ‘DNA’, ‘Alright’, ‘Like That’ with Future’s voice on the sound system, ‘Money Trees’, ‘Peekaboo’, ‘dodger blue’, ‘tv off’ and ‘Not Like Us’ were major highlights as the sky darkened above the crowd. In the end, the Brits gave a send off only we know best – chanting ‘oh Kendrick Lamar’ on repeat in football fashion as the clouds raced forward like in a movie above us.
However, the change between Kendrick and SZA’s headline sections from hype to subdued and back again had the effect of whiplash. This could work at times where they would join up forces, as I’m a fan of both their tracks and their featured songs together, but the professionals in them had their focus on nailing their performance as opposed to exuding emotion and chemistry between each other.
I will say the duo works in terms of their shared relaxed, shy-but-not-shy style and stripped back stage presence. It gives a certan humble beginnings aspect to the show that you wouldn’t necessarily expect from two big stars.
Set design and costumes
In terms of the set design, Kendrick kept it tame with the big screens behind them and the GNX black car in the backdrop – sometimes covered in leafy greenery when it came to a SZA overlap. On the flipside, SZA used nature imagery with a fortress of flower forestry climbing behind her and her dancers, who were dressed up as trees and giant insects/bugs themselves. Later, SZA appeared as a fairy suspended in the air for her nightly serenade of ‘Open Arms’, before shedding the longer sheet to be held by her four wings as she crooned into ‘Nobody Gets Me’. Before she went into this ballad, SZA told the crowd, “I wrote this song about my ex-fiance / But now we’re strangers / It’s bizarre / It could happen to you too!”.
In conclusion, the tour is 100% worth attending and seeing in person. But I do have to harp on the fact that some artists shouldn’t feel the need to cater to stadiums. SZA is more than worthy to be there at her level of success, and her voice fills the area, but whether its the best thing to do for your fans’ experience is still questionable. Having said this, the Grand National Tour will go down in history with the iconic rapper and R&B duo from their many songs.
My Goddess Complex 
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