It was the one night in San Francisco when it was cool to wear a Dodgers hat.
Kendrick Lamar, the L.A.-native rapper, rocked one from the moment he ascended to the Oracle Park stage inside a 1987 Buick GNX at around 8:30 p.m. Thursday.
And so did concertgoer Munache Williams, who proudly showed off the Lamar-themed cap she’d decorated. “I saw on Kendrick’s finsta [secret Instagram] that he had a hat with his brand, PGLang. So I got an L.A. hat and sewed the rest into it, collected and found trinkets, coins, and beads to glue on.”
She wanted to be “on theme with the racer aesthetic.”
Lamar’s drag-racing obsession was one fashion inspiration at the San Francisco stop of his 33-city Grand National tour with fellow Grammy-winner SZA. The other was SZA’s fascination with insects. Her performance included dancers dressed like praying mantises, a rideable black ant the size of a Harley, and the singer herself flitting around in translucent butterfly wings.
The buggy vibes were strong outside Oracle before the show. Local teen Leah Aguirre, who received her concert ticket as a Christmas present, rocked bright-blue butterflies in her hair. Kharma Muhammad appended butterflies to her thrifted denim top and pants.
The merch lines for official concert tees and hoodies wrapped around much of the ballpark before the show. Inside the stadium, the story was the same: If you wanted an oversize white shirt with Kendrick’s phrase “If This World Were Mine” or an “I 🐞 SZA” camouflage tee, you were going to wait. And wait.
The endless lines didn’t stop Clare W., Krisha K., Lilly J., and Makayla T. Each of the friends got their hands on a ladybug shirt to commemorate the SZA performance.
The fashion was one draw for attendees; the music was the bigger one. Auteurs of the hip-hop and soul games, Lamar and SZA tagged in and out for a two-and-a- half-hour set that transfixed the crowd of more than 30,000. The hits came toward the end: Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” SZA’s “Kill Bill,” and the pair’s “Luther” and “All the Stars,” which was accompanied by a cellphone light show from the crowd.
For the finale, both artists climbed back into the tinted Buick GNX that had carried Lamar up to the stage for the opening. The car descended beneath the stage, the two superstars cocooned fashionably inside.
