The five best-selling hip-hop/R&B tours of 2025
At the lower end of the music ecosystem, touring can be a gruelling affair for smaller artists that doesn’t necessarily make that much money. But, at the high end of things, for A-list pop stars and rappers, it can be an eye-wateringly lucrative activity.
Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, which took place through 2023 and ’24, is the highest-grossing tour in music history, initially becoming the first tour to ever make a billion dollars—and later going further by making an extra billion. Whatever else one might think of it, the Eras tour’s socioeconomic significance is undeniable.
While no tour that took place throughout 2025 came close to matching the Eras tour in terms of the money it generated, there were nonetheless plenty of artists that made hundreds of millions of dollars from their shows. Coldplay were the most lucrative artists throughout ’25, generating some $464.9 million from their gigs, but there were plenty of R&B and hip-hop artists who made lots of money, too.
As revealed by Billboard’s Boxscore charts, which rank the highest-grossing tours of a given year, major artists that can be described as hip-hop, R&B, or a combination of the two embarked on some of the most lucrative tours of the year. Here’s a list of those who made the most money.
The five best-selling hip-hop/R&B tours of 2025:
5. Post Malone’s Big Ass Stadium Tour
Post Malone’s Big Ass Stadium Tour, as its very name suggests, saw him performing in stadiums throughout North America and Europe. It was the first time that he’d done a stadium tour, and it was suitably lucrative. By the time all was said and done, and he was doing his last gig in London in September, the tour had generated some $231.2 million and had been performed for about 1.6 million fans. When considering artists of all genres, this made it the eighth most financially successful tour of the year.
The Big Ass Stadium Tour was in support of Malone’s sixth album, F-1 Trillion, which is a straight-up country album featuring leading figures of the genre such as Dolly Parton, Hank Williams Jr, Tim McGraw and Brad Paisley. It would certainly be a stretch to describe this record as hip-hop, but the Big Ass Stadium Tour saw Malone perform tracks from his entire career. This includes some of his hip-hop numbers.
4. Chris Brown’s Breezy Bowl XX
Chris Brown is an undeniably divisive figure, remembered for, among other things, pleading guilty in 2009 to the felony assault of his partner of the time, Rihanna. His career took a hit following that incident, yet, through the years, he rebuilt his career and has become one of the biggest touring artists on the planet. For good or for ill, the numbers that he scored throughout 2025 speak to his immense and enduring popularity. According to the Billboard Boxscore stats, Brown’s touring throughout 2025 generated $248.7 million and catered to 1.7 million people.
This made it the sixth most lucrative tour of the year, proving beyond any reasonable doubt that Brown’s career is as strong today as it’s ever been. But even this tour was marred by legal issues, after he was arrested in Manchester, England, on a warrant issued a couple of years previously for a grievous bodily harm charge. He was released on a $5 million bail and was permitted to complete the tour.
3. The Weeknd’s After Hours til Dawn Tour
The Weeknd’s ongoing tour, the After Hours til Dawn Tour, has been operating since the summer of 2022, and it won’t end until next September. But even though it hasn’t finished yet, it already registers as one of the most lucrative tours of all time, having recently tipped over the billion dollar mark in terms of revenues generated. It’s so successful that, even on the 2025 figures alone, it is still considered to be one of the most successful tours of the year.
Throughout 2025 alone, the After Hours til Dawn Tour has generated $336.7 million and has entertained some 2.2 million people, making it the fourth-most lucrative tour of the year in all genres. It was initially envisioned as a means of promoting the Weeknd’s fourth album, 2020’s After Hours, but, following the onset of the COVID pandemic, and all of the delays and rescheduling that came with it, the tour was pushed back and retooled to support his fifth album Dawn FM and, later, his sixth album Hurry Up Tomorrow, released earlier this year. The tour has evolved through the years and remains profoundly successful.
2. Kendrick Lamar & SZA’s Grand National Tour
Kendrick Lamar and SZA, despite their divergent musical styles, have been successfully collaborating for a long time now, beginning when they were both Top Dawg Entertainment artists in 2024. Theirs has been an enduring musical partnership, and it reached its peak through 2025 as the pair set off on tour together. The Grand National Tour saw Kendrick perform all over the world, hitting up places in South America and Australia, but, for the European and North American gigs, he shared the billing with SZA.
Individual shows were each split into nine parts, with most of them dedicated to either Kendrick or SZA performing solo. But a couple of the sections saw the pair performing together, which, ultimately, proved to be a winning formula. The tour was hugely successful and made about $358.7 million by its end. A single one of its shows, a gig in Seattle, became the most lucrative hip-hop show ever, selling just shy of 61,000 tickets and reportedly making $14.8 million.
1. Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter Tour
In second place behind Coldplay on the overall tour list is Beyoncé, whose Cowboy Carter Tour made $407.6million in 2025. Much like Post Malone’s Big Ass Stadium Tour, it sits in a strange position in terms of its genre classification, given that it was in support of Bey’s country album Cowboy Carter, and it is even considered to be the highest-grossing country tour ever. But, given that plenty of her R&B and hip-hop-infused tracks were also performed along the way, it shouldn’t strictly be pigeon-holed as solely country.
The tour was suitably ambitious for an artist of Beyoncé’s stature. The elaborate stage featured a mechanical bull, floating platforms, robotic arms and fireworks, while the choreography took inspiration from everything from flamenco to Irish dancing. In general terms, the performances served as celebrations of Black people’s contributions to American culture, including to country music. It was very well-received from critics and audiences alike.