Lil Wayne concert trek grosses $42 million

Los Angeles: The final numbers are in for Lil Wayne`s 2008-2009 North American touring, and it appears the rapper will have the highest grossing hip-hop outing of the year -- and the most lucrative rap jaunt that Billboard has ever tracked.Seventy-eight Lil Wayne headlining arena and amphitheater concerts in North America from December 14, 2008, through September 6, 2009, grossed about $42 million and drew nearly 804,000 fans, according to Shawn Gee, Lil Wayne`s tour producer and tour business manager.

"It`s definitely one of the biggest in the last couple of years," Gee tells Billboard.com. "Our plan was to prove that Wayne was a viable headlining arena artist." The second highest-grossing rap tour that Billboard has tracked was Jay-Z`s 2008 jaunt with Mary J. Blige, which grossed $34.6 million and drew 310,694 concertgoers to 28 shows. Kanye West`s 2008 Glow In the Dark tour comes in third, having pulled in $30.8 million from 49 concerts that attracted 507,853 fans. Other lucrative hip-hop tours in recent years include 2005`s Eminem/50 Cent Anger Management tour, which grossed $22.7 million from 23 shows; and a 50 Cent tour in 2003 that rang up nearly $23 million in ticket sales, much of it co-headlining with Jay-Z on the Roc-the-Mic tour. Hip-hop tours rarely crack the Billboard year-end list of the top 25 grossing tours, but it`s likely that Lil Wayne`s 2009 trek will earn a spot on this year`s tally. The concerts promoted Lil Wayne`s 2008 album, "Tha Carter III," which has sold 3.2 million copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The rapper`s oft-delayed next album, "Rebirth," is due November 24. Although no specific touring plans are currently in the works, Gee believes that Lil Wayne will continue as an arena-sized headliner. "We definitely want to capitalize on the success we`ve had and want to continue building Wayne as a touring artist and not just an artist that tours," he says. "We established him as a headline artist and I think it grows from there." Bureau Report