Gig review: Kendrick Lamar at First Direct Arena, Leeds

“You could be anywhere in the world,” Kendrick Lamar tells Leeds’s First Direct Arena. “But you’re here with us.” He's not wrong; bar a few empty pockets here and there, it feels like the whole of West Yorkshire has turned out to see his latest tour, at least measured on eardrum-puncturing levels.

The Compton-born megastar has seldom been short of acclaim – 14 Grammy Awards and a Pulitzer Prize tells you that – but it has only been the past half-decade his live powers have caught up. He famously bowed at Reading and Leeds Festival in 2015 between The Libertines and Jamie T, with a DOA set; three years later, a truncated performance fell flat coming after the emo-pop of co-headliners Panic! at the Disco.

Now, he has the high-art stage show to match his aspirations. Here behind latest album Mr Morale & the Big Steppers, it is as much theatre as concert; minimalist in design, and guided by the disembodied voice of Dame Helen Mirren as his fictional therapist, Lamar steps into the shoes of his record's title character for what amounts to 100 minutes of 21st century opera; hip-hop poetry in place of Puccini.

There's something bizarrely akin to the ye olde English Music Hall tradition with this gig; its star wields a ventriloquist dummy for opener United in Grief, like the socially conscious rap equivalent of Keith Harris and Orville, while support acts Baby Keem and Tanna Leone both pop up in the vein of adjacent sketch players you might find on The Good Old Days.

But similarities end there; even without an apparent live band, Lamar shares sonic ground with the root canal-rattling hammer-heft of Nine Inch Nails, and holds gripping court throughout. Whether picking off piano keys on HUMBLE or caught in a flashlight trap amidst m.A.A.d city, his oratory prowess proves a breathless attraction.

The hits, abridged as they are, earn a king’s welcome, King Kunta and B**ch Don’t Kill My Vibe rapturously feted by a near-capacity crowd, while Alright – performed inside a transparent cage where Lamar is subjected to a faux Covid test – earns its share of laughs.

But it is closer Savior that leaves an unusual final impact, its coda a blistering anticlimax. There's no bloody crown this time, but there doesn’t need to be. Lamar might not be hip-hop’s messiah, but it seems he’s got his own scriptures to bring the faithful home.