Event Review: Ken Carson’s The WTF Tour Delivers Chaotic Energy at OVO Arena Wembley

On Monday, 16th March, Atlanta rage-rapper Ken Carson made his fifth stop of the well-hyped WTF EU/UK tour at the OVO arena in Wembley, London. Admittedly, I’d never seen him live before, but his mass cult artist status piqued my interest. I remember seeing one viral video-turned-meme where Lana Del Rey fans were panicking during a cross-over in Carson’s moshpits at Coachella, to which he replied, “If you’re scared, you shoulda stayed the f*ck home”. Some critics have argued that Opium, the rage-rap label established by Playboi Carti in 2015, is heading towards an era of nostalgia, but the unrestrained mania of this show proved otherwise.

I arrived at the well-lit arena, and whilst it was dark outside, it was somehow even darker inside. Fans were draped abundantly in black leather, dull silver hardware, dog collars, fur accessories, oversized boots, and inked religious iconography – the ultimate androgynous e-girl/boy archetype. There were a few eccentric inflatable costumes which tapped into the Halloween-y nature of Carson’s work. They served as informal mascots in the pits, hyping the crowd, and were widely shared on the internet post-concert as cool interactions to have had. Everything is a joke to the meme-literate followers of Opium. ​

The idea of going as hard as you impossibly can is the ultimate Ken Carson show manifesto, yet as I was preparing for the show, I read in an interview with Pitchfork, that he sometimes questions, “What if my shows aren’t lit?” As I sat in my seat, my eyes panned around the arena, now a swarming beehive, there was a palpable intensity in the air even before Carson was set to appear on stage. DJ Moon, Ken Carson’s official DJ,  who opened for him on the last EU tour (2024), was wiring the crowd up with Playboi Carti’s discography just as the room full of teenage boys started taking their tops off and swinging over balconies to jump into the pits, whilst security attempted what can only be described as an abstraction of control. Piquant notes of weed and sweat lingered thick in the air, whilst many were sparking up inside the venue with no trouble. It all bordered on this angsty sense of liberation and rebellion that felt quite charming to witness, even if I wasn’t participating myself.

As for the music, there was an almost equal split between songs played from More Chaos (2025) and A Great Chaos (2023), with popular throwbacks such as “Yale” and “Freestyle 2” scattered into the mix. The allure of booming 808 drums, electrified synths, and excessive auto-tune has cemented Carson’s sound in global consciousness over the past five years, and as I watched the show, I realised just how much I’ve been indirectly exposed. Yet, I do feel like there was a missed opportunity to fully preview more from the recent project, there were some reflective passages that could’ve allowed Carson to unveil the screen of nonchalance and coolness by emotionally connecting with his fans through his wider discography. 

There were many predictions circling online for potential special guests, yet in the end, Carson showed up solo. I feel like an opening slot from rising UK Drill experimentalist SINN6R would’ve gone down really well. It was also challenging to actually differentiate which songs were most appealing because the energy in the pits was consistently unruly. However, I did note that the moshes peaked in “Off the Meter” ft Playboi Carti and Destroy Lonely, “Blakk Rokkstar”, “Overseas” and “Succubus” (which was my favourite of the night) purely because hearing the “yeahhhh” part sung live put me in a trance. The outros were looped before the beginning of each song to edge the crowd whilst his signature “what the fuck’s!!” mc’d, and comma’d the setlist as well as being a snarling ad-lib. Burning flames, stroboscopic lighting, gothic visuals and coloured pyrotechnics added a lucrative dimension, creating a heightened sensory experience that felt like hellish escapism.

During the show, I spoke to a few fans and asked them to describe it. I wanted to get a feel for how others had experienced what I’d just watched. These three words kept repeating themselves: “hot, sweaty, cramped”. One fan said, “I would’ve thugged it out, but I was on the verge of passing out”. I think it’s safe to say Carson’s fans know what to expect before turning up, and in large part are there for a night filled with endless moshing, and general antisocial behaviour, rather than the idolatry of seeing their favourite internet celebrity play live. 

I pondered the set design. The multi-level industrial scaffolding is a repeating theme throughout the history of Carson’s live shows – was it a calculated message or was it simply a practical backdrop? The choice of the scaffolding implies that it’ll be set up only to be dismantled and reduced to its components over and over again, in different cities and time zones, and that definitely holds significance. At first glance, I dismissed it as trashy and slightly underwhelming. It seemed an unstylish attempt at an apocalyptic, dystopian setting, composed of metal bars and dirtied, torn-up, large white sheets. But more importantly, watching Carson navigate the perilous heights and rarely meet his audience eye-to-eye reminded me of the irony of a sentiment he expressed in an interview with Nardwuar back in 2024, where he stated: “Nothing is out of reach. Nothing is out of sight. Nothing is out of mind”. 

Yet his presence on stage reduced these words to dust. I felt as though throughout the concert he was, in fact, out of reach, remaining three levels above his crowd like a sermon preacher in a pulpit, mostly obscured by heavy smoke. He didn’t address his audience and barely rapped along to his songs. His lack of showmanship didn’t seem to matter to the fans since they do have a popular reputation for being ride-or-die, yet whether or not this was a product of tour fatigue, to me, it read as lazy to connect. It gave “look at me” instead of “be with me”.

While there was an obvious breadcrumbing situation between Carson and his audience, I found the crowd’s mass-alternative nature and the mimetic appeal of Carson’s universe to be the most fascinating aspects of the night. My experience may have been different had I actually been in the mosh pits myself, waving a Ken Carson emblazoned flag and praying at his make-shift shrine at the floor’s centre. One thing I know for sure, is that by the shows’ ending our collective eardrums had fully burst, and that feeling of uninhibited chaos may not be so anomalous after all. As the show ended on an unreleased snippet of “Stars”, likely set to appear on his forthcoming sixth studio album “The Xperiment” , Carson said “I love you, London”, and walked off.

Words by Sakithya Sothinathan

Photo Credit kult.jpg