Up in Smoke Tour tour begins

Why it matters

June 15, 2000. The Up in Smoke Tour launched in San Diego with a roster nobody had ever seen on one rap touring bill before: Dr. Dre headlining, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Ice Cube, Warren G, Xzibit, the D12 crew, Mack 10, and Nate Dogg. The tour was promoted by Sony Music Entertainment and routed across 44 arena dates in the United States. The opening night in San Diego was a sellout. The Dre-Snoop-Eminem-Cube combination was the strongest commercial rap tour roster anybody had ever assembled. By the end of the run the tour had grossed approximately $22 million, which was the highest gross for a hip-hop tour in US history to that point. The DVD documentation of the tour (released later in 2000) sold more than a million copies on its own. You can argue that the Up in Smoke Tour is the moment the West Coast finally reabsorbed the commercial momentum it had been pushing through the 90s. The Hard Knock Life Tour the year before had proved arena hip-hop could be commercially viable. Up in Smoke proved it could be the biggest tour going.