And now their two kingdoms have become one. When West and Jay-Z come to TD Garden on Monday, they’re bringing with them not just the marquee hip-hop event of the year, but also a juggernaut tour that proves just how supreme the genre reigns.
“I think it shows how strong hip-hop is, especially here in Boston,’’ says Dylan Sprague, program director for JAM’N 94.5, Boston’s most popular hip-hop radio station. “The ticket sales and album sales have been extraordinary, and I think it shows how hip-hop has evolved.’’
As of Wednesday, tickets were still available for the Garden show, but there’s a good chance it will sell out.
“If they price it right, hip-hop shows do well here,’’ says Tricia McCorkle, spokesperson for TD Garden, adding that the venue routinely hosts the annual Monster Jam concert (including this year’s show on Nov. 30 featuring Drake and Wiz Khalifa).
“It’s a huge tour. It’s not playing an enormous number of markets and I think they’ve carefully selected ones that are supportive of rap and hip-hop,’’ says Gary Bongiovanni, editor in chief of Pollstar, the concert industry trade magazine. “It’s all major arenas, and they’re doing multiple nights in a number of places. That’s the best indication of how tickets are going, when they start adding more dates.’’
But West and Jay-Z are arguably the only duo in rap who could pack arenas night after night. Earlier this year Lil Wayne, fresh from prison, took Nicki Minaj and Rick Ross on the road with him, but the tour didn’t carry the same kind of heft. West and Jay-Z have been working together for at least a decade - West was one of the producers of Jay-Z’s “The Blueprint’’ in 2001 - and collectively their draw is vast, well beyond the 18-to-34 demographic.
