On the fourth and final day of the festival, the sun was beating down making for another extremely hot and muggy day. Foot traffic and a lack of rain had reduced the grass across the festival grounds to a thin layer of dust that was easily swept up in the slightest breeze. This made for the perfect storm of a large group of sweaty people and free-floating dirt flying through the air. As a result, people got dirty. As the day went on, more and more people were walking around with streaks of mud down their legs and arms. For most, it was just an inevitable byproduct of Lollapalooza.

With a festival lineup heavily skewed toward hip-hop, Sunday was the day where rap truly reigned. After about 3 p.m. there was hip-hop being performed at all times somewhere in the park until the day ended about seven hours later. While stacking a schedule so heavily to one genre runs the risk of alienating many ticket holders, it seemed to pay off.

Gucci Mane

In matching plaid shirt and shorts with a collection of glistening, and probably very expensive, chains around his neck, Gucci Mane started things off the best way you can in Chicago: by playing Chance the Rapper. In an impressive set at one of the hottest points in the day, Gucci Mane played some of his biggest hits as well as other artist’s popular songs such as Chance’s “No Problems” and Rae Sremmurd’s “Black Beatles,” two of the biggest songs in hip-hop in the past few years.

A little over 24 hours before he took the stage, LL Cool J was in the exact same place giving a lesson on classic hip-hop. Today, Gucci Mane did the opposite and gave his fans the music they knew best, much to their delight.

While his performance was energized and kept the crowd bouncing with the beat, he did end the show about 15 minutes before scheduled, seemingly a trend amongst many of the artists this year. Regardless, his fans didn’t seem to mind much as most of them simply turned around and walked straight across to the Tito’s Stage where another hip-hop artist was set to begin shortly.

NAV adds some R&B to the mix

Giving the crowd a break from strictly rap, NAV’s music blends together hip-hop and R&B allowing the crowd to sing along for a change. Wearing black pants and a black t-shirt under a blue jacket, NAV played to one of the largest crowds the Tito’s Stage saw all weekend.

His setlist was expertly designed, with each song flowing seamlessly into the next making the performance feel as cohesive as possible. Despite this being the third festival he’s played in a row, the Lolla crowd surpassed them all in his eyes. “Y’all know every word,” NAV said of his music. “It’s a blessing.” NAV ended the show with what is arguably his biggest hit, “Myself,” with the cheers of the crowd and the heavy bass carrying across the northern end of Grant Park.

Lil Uzi Vert gives the crowd what they want

Like they did just an hour before, most of NAV’s crowd turned directly around and walked straight to the Bud Light stage, quickly securing their spots for arguably the biggest hip-hop artist of the day: Lil Uzi Vert.

With the sun setting, most of the crowd was covered by shade with the angle of the sun hitting the stage perfectly, creating a golden spotlight on the artist.

On the stage with his DJ and huge crosses behind him, Lil Uzi jumped around as the fans jumped with him. After initially seeing the crowd’s response to his performance, he decided to play almost all of his most popular songs back-to-back for the entire show. At one point he stated, “I’m not good at speeches so let’s just keep it going,” cueing the DJ to start the next track. This essentially ensured that the fans wouldn’t lose energy at any point, giving him one of the best crowds of the weekend.

However, like many performances this weekend, the show had to stop mid-way through to spread the crowd out to prevent injury to those pushed up against the gates in the front.

Lil Uzi took frequent breaks from the microphone to dance around. His facial expressions while dancing, projected onto the two huge screens surrounding the stage, eventually became a highlight of the show.

After performing his hits “You Was Right,” “Do What I Want” and “Money Longer” among others he decided to end the show with a second rendition of what is considered one of his greatest songs, “XO TOUR LIif3.”

Lil Uzi handed the microphone to someone in the crowd and as the fans sang it one last time, he abruptly left the stage ending the show with the music still playing. It seemed like an unplanned move as the cameras desperately scanned the stage for the artist, projecting onto the big screens. Once the crowd realized Lil Uzi left for good, so did they, already focused on the next show.

Quinn XCII outdoes himself

In what he himself has called “the biggest show of his life,” Quinn XCII performed brilliantly as dust spun around in the air, kicked up from the large crowd jumping and dancing in what had essentially turned into a sandbox.

On the American Eagle Stage, Quinn XCII performed as his music videos played on the screen behind him. Luckily for him, the schedule worked out in his favor with a large crowd coming from Bud Light just 10 minutes into his set.

By choosing the setlist he did, and playing songs like “Another Day in Paradise” and “Always Been You,” Quinn XCII gave the crowd feel-good songs with a beat that was easy to dance to as well as highlighting his impressive range as a singer.

One thing’s for sure, while he may have been relatively unknown to many, he definitely earned himself some new fans last night.

Playboi Carti ends the weekend

About 30 minutes after Quinn XCII ended and his fans were replaced by Playboi Carti’s, the DJ kicked off the show with the sound of a machine gun blaring through the speaker. After that, a song started and Carti burst on stage jumping and screaming his lyrics into the microphone. That level of energy remained for the rest of the performance, for both him and his fans.

People climbed the trees that sheltered the stage, trusting even the thinnest branches with their weight in order to get a better view. Flashlights from cellphones lit up the crowd and the dust still swirling around in the night. The screen behind Carti simply read “IT ENDS HERE” which was fitting considering he had one of the last shows of the entire festival.

He performed songs like “R.I.P.” and “Shoota” off of his newest album as well as “*wokeuplikethis” and “Magnolia,” two of his most popular songs to date.

In what seemed like a missed opportunity, Playboi Carti and Lil Uzi Vert never shared the stage despite collaborating on multiple songs including “*wokeuplikethis” which they both included in their respective sets.

While seeing them on stage together would have been a highlight for many, the end of Lollapalooza was still full of notable moments all across the park, making for another memorable weekend of music.