Drake Tour Opens With ‘Look What You’ve Done,’ Teases New Album
Prior to the Chicago launch, Drake reflected on his biggest fear in a tour trailer
Drake’s It’s All a Blur tour launched on Wednesday with the rapper opening with “Look What You’ve Done” at Chicago’s United Center.
The rapper-poet performed the song from a couch while appearing to recite the lyrics from a notebook. The show marked his first stretch of performances in North America since the Aubrey & the Three Migos tour hit arenas in 2018.
His opening night setlist packed more than 50 songs, according to setlist.fm, and featured works spanning the last decade of Drake’s career including “Marvins Room,” “HYFR,” “God’s Plan,” and “Search & Rescue,” which notably sampled Kim Kardashian. Taking the stage on a massive platform that displayed larger-than-life images (from floating sperm to headlines) onto a screen above, Drake also hinted at his upcoming project, teasing, “I have an album coming out soon for y’all.”
During the performance, Drake also covered Ginuwine’s song “So Anxious,” when a phone was thrown at him. The device hit his left arm and landed on the ground without causing the Canadian rapper any injury. He kept singing as he watched the phone fall. Also during the concert, Drake took a shot at Childish Gambino, with a tour visual reading: “The overrated and over-awarded hit song ‘This Is America’ was originally a Drake diss record.”
Drake was later joined by 21 Savage, who made his entrance to Fantasia’s “When I See U.” The pair performed together during the main set for a series of songs such as “Spin Bout U,” “Jimmy Cooks,” and “Rich Flex” from their Her Loss collab album. Prior to Wednesday’s show, Drake released a tour trailer and dipped into a bit of existentialism, sharing how his”biggest fear” is that it’s “for nothing.”
“Someone asked me the other night what my biggest fear is,” Drake began in the video. “And I’ve never really had a good answer for it, but my answer was that all this is for nothing. Kind of the idea that like, one day life ends and it just all goes black. And I guess that question like, sent me, you know, obviously deep into a spiral of thought. And it makes me think about my life and how surreal it feels at times. I go back to this day when I was like, 13 or 14.”
He continued to recount how he got high ahead of his Degrassi performance. “I had an audition for a TV show that ultimately shaped my life and before my audition, I went to this kid’s house and I out of, I guess, a desire to be accepted,” he said. “I would succumb to peer pressure, and I got high with these kids right before my audition, and I kind of wonder, like, if something bad happened that day or, you know, maybe I’m still high, maybe I’m in some coma. And this is just like me playing out my ideal life. And yeah, that concept has stuck with me for a lot of years. I mean, it feels like reality, it feels tangible. But I definitely wonder sometimes.”
After the rapper’s second show at Chicago’s United Center, he will head to Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena. The It’s All a Blur tour runs through October.
This story was updated on July 6 at 4:50 p.m. ET to include mention of Drake being hit by a phone, and his Childish Gambino reference.
From Rolling Stone US.