DJ Akademiks claims Kendrick Lamar will fly from Canada to NY just to sleep before flying back for his Toronto performance the next day
Media personality DJ Akademiks claimed Kendrick Lamar will fly from Canada to New York following his recent show in Toronto "for his own safety." The media personality further alleged that the rapper would sleep in New York and fly back to Canada the following day for his second show in the city.
For context, Kendrick Lamar and SZA are currently performing two back-to-back shows in Toronto as part of their "Grand National Tour" on June 12 and 13, 2025. This marked the Compton rapper's first performance in Canada since his highly publicized 2024 rap battle with hometown rapper Drake.
On June 12, DJ Akademiks took to his X account to allege that Kendrick Lamar "has left Canada with a 25-car police escort" to fly to New York after performing his hit Drake diss track Not Like Us. The media personality also claimed that Lamar will allegedly fly back to Toronto for the show on June 13 and is scheduled to "evacuate the country" immediately after the show.
"Kendrick Lamar has left Canada with a 25 car police escort and is on a flight to New York to sleep for his own safety after performing Not Like Us He will fly back in from New York to Toronto to perform with SZA tomorrow and will immediately evacuate the country after performing," the tweet read.
Kendrick Lamar has left Canada with a 25 car police escort and is on a flight to New York to sleep for his own safety after performing Not Like Us
He will fly back in from New York to Toronto to perform with SZA tomorrow and will immediately evacuate the country after performing
However, there has been no official confirmation from a credible source, and no major publication has reported on Kendrick Lamar leaving Toronto after his show on June 12.
Drake fans organized an "OVO Takeover" ahead of Kendrick Lamar's concert
According to HotNewHipHop, Drake's fans organized an "OVO Takeover" outside the Rogers Centre in Toronto ahead of Kendrick Lamar and SZA's show on June 12. However, the takeover was reportedly canceled after concertgoers alerted the police about the initiative.
The takeover's organizers claimed they were falsely accused of planning to "start trouble" in a social media statement, adding:
"Unfortunately, we have to cancel the OVO Takeover. We genuinely just wanted to bring people together, have some fun, and create good vibes for the city. But unfortunately, some people decided to report us, falsely claiming we were planning to "start trouble" or cause chaos. Because of those reports, police were already on high alert and were quick to shut down anything that even looked like a crowd forming - including us."
For the uninitiated, OVO is an acronym for October's Very Own, the name of Drake's independent record label. The acronym has also become synonymous with Drake's fan base. In Not Like Us, Lamar had mocked OVO by referring to it as "OV-Ho."
Meanwhile, Drake and Kai Cenat were scheduled to appear on stream together on June 12 to select the winners of the Somebody Loves Me music video competition, which Cenat had announced the previous month.
However, hours before they were scheduled to begin the livestream, Cenat took to his Instagram Story to announce that he and Drake had decided to postpone the event as they needed more time to sift through the participants' ideas for the music video.
Following this, ticket-selling platform StubHub noticed an uptick in ticket demand for the June 12 show of Lamar's ongoing tour. The company took to social media to note that the demand resulted in Toronto becoming one of the "top five best-selling cities" on the tour.
According to The Times Colonist Kendrick Lamar's performance of "Not Like Us" at the Rogers Centre in Toronto earned him a two-minute standing ovation and calls for an encore. However, the rapper reportedly didn't oblige with the encore and continued with the show.
SZA and Lamar are expected to perform at the same venue on June 13 before traveling to Hershey, Pennsylvania, for the next show on June 16.
