all hail the king!

'King of Country' George Strait returns to close out RodeoHouston 2022

The king of country will close out next year's rodeo.

Photo courtesy of RodeoHouston

Houston, it’s time to rally all those exes who live in Texas and mark those calendars. In celebration of RodeoHouston’s 90th anniversary, the King of Country, George Strait, will close out the event’s run on Sunday, March 20, 2022.

Country’s reigning monarch’s full-length evening concert will be held in NRG Stadium on the final night of the 2022 Rodeo, which runs for 21 days Monday, February 28 through Sunday, March 20, 2022, the rodeo announced on March 18.

Fans, take note: Individual tickets for Strait’s concert-only performance go on sale to the public Thursday, June 24. (Tix are limited to four per person). The rodeo promises a full entertainer lineup announcement once available.

“What better way to celebrate the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo’s 90th anniversary than with a special, concert-only performance by the ‘King of Country’ music himself,” rodeo president and CEO Chris Boleman noted in a statement. “After a couple of particularly challenging years, our thousands of dedicated volunteers simply can’t wait to welcome everyone back to the Rodeo grounds for a Texas-sized celebration of Western heritage that will be well worth the wait.”

Next year’s performance marks Strait’s 31st rodeo performance; his first was in 1983. Those lucky enough to catch the king in 2019 with special guests Lyle Lovett and Robert Earl Keen will recall that the show shattered NRG Stadium attendance records with some 80,108 fans. (Read the CultureMap review here.)

Notably, that NRG Stadium record is separate from the paid rodeo/concert attendance records, as this was a concert-only performance with additional seats on the floor of the stadium.

By the numbers, Strait has entertained more than 1.7 million rodeo fans through the years.

Strait and RodeoHouston are inexorably intertwined. He was inducted into the RodeoHouston Star Trail of Fame in 1996, and in 2013, the first four-year Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo George Strait Scholarship was awarded through the rodeo’s scholarship program.

To date, Strait boasts 33 platinum or multi-platinum-selling albums and 60 No. 1 singles — the most of any artist of any music genre in history — plus, a Grammy for his album, Troubadour. Not surprisingly, he is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame.

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Kings of Comedy

Houston rap legend Willie D toasts 60th birthday with comedy roast

Photo by Spike the Designer

Willie D will celebrate his 60th birthday with a roast.

It appears that one of Houston’s rap legends saw Netflix’s Roast of Kevin Hart and decided to do one for himself — but funnier.

Willie D, from the pioneering Houston hip-hop group Geto Boys, is bringing the celebrity roast back to its roots with The Roast of Willie D: Cooked by Legends, going down at Sugar Land’s Smart Financial Centre on Wednesday, October 28.

The rapper/media personality/community advocate, who will turn 60 on Sunday, November 1, will be using his birthday celebration to remind everyone that roasts are meant to be familial, funny, and ultimately a good time for everybody.

“What people forget is that roasts started at the barbershop, street corners, family gatherings, and are rooted in community, ” D said in a statement. “What we’re seeing today sometimes comes off as manufactured cruelty, and I’m not with that. Roasting should leave your audience laughing, not ready to fight.”

Comedian/Original King of Comedy D.L. Hughley will serve as roastmaster, with Cedric the Entertainer (another fellow King), Houston’s own Ali Siddiq, and other as-yet-announced special guests appearing on the dais, ready to roast the man of the hour. Live music is also scheduled, which means we may get some performances from Willie D himself. (Let’s hope he performs “Clean Up Man” so we can see this guy again.)

Willie D adds that he can’t think of a better way to celebrate a milestone most doubted he would reach. “All my life, people said I wouldn't live to be 18 years old, and I pinched myself every birthday,” he said. “Getting to 50 years old was great, but getting to 60 really, in my opinion, deserves a pat on the back.”

The one-night-only event will be recorded live for television, with tickets going on sale this Friday, August 21, at 10 am. (The artist presale tickets are this Wednesday, August 19, at the same time.) For more info, visit the Smart Financial Centre website.

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