The Drake versus Lil Wayne tour made a stop at Fair Park’s Gexa Energy Pavillion Sunday. The concert was formatted like a rap battle between the two relationally close, but stylistically contrasting artists.
Thirty-one-year-old rap legend and lyrical genius Lil Wayne, whose debut album dropped about 15 years ago, met Drake in November 2008, who is now perhaps the hottest and most omnipresent figure in modern hip hop.
Before the concert, audience members were prompted to download an app, which gave them the ability to cast votes during different parts of the performance deciding the order of performers and the winners of different segments.
Weezy won the initial voter competition and took the stage first, opening with “I’m Goin’ In.” The entire concert lasted about three hours and featured several different segments, including a competition between the duo’s DJs and a features battle when they sang short hooks from hits by other artists that they’d been featured in.
As was expected, Lil Wayne’s battle strategy was to capitalize on older hits from his decade-and-a-half-long presence in the music industry. After Drake performed more current jams like “Worst Behavior” and “The Motto,” Tunechi called him out, saying, “Drake, there’s a difference between hits and classics.”
The few songs that followed were met with palpable enthusiasm from the audience, the result you’d likely expect from a rap-loving crowd watching a performance of 2008’s “A Milli.”
Like many Gexa performances, the show was visually stimulating, awing the crowd with balls of fire, lime green lasers and fireworks. The venue’s gigantic screens featured comic-like drawings of the duo throughout the show and, during Drake’s solo, all-caps phrases like “DRAKE KNOWS”, in a style similar to the cover art on his 2010 album, Thank Me Later.
At one point, the rapper even stood on a floating platform that moved around above audience members’ heads as he sang and shouted out to certain lucky viewers saying, “I see you baby girl in the white tee,” and, “I see you reppin’ the Cowboys.”
By the end of the night, Drake was the official winner of the competition after paying homage to Texas several times, discussing his love for and connection to Houston, the city where he and Weezy first met.
Senior Sal Saroni enjoyed Lil Wayne’s performance, but agrees with the audience’s choice.
“Wayne had some incredible moments, but Drake brought life to the stage the entire concert,” said Saroni. “It was hard not to get caught up in.”
Drake may have been the winner, but Lil Wayne went out with a bang when he announced the upcoming release of his eleventh album, Tha Carter V.
