TDE’s southern rap star, Isaiah Rashad and his “Lil Sunny’s Awful Road Trip” Tour rolled into The Fillmore Silver Spring last week for a sold-out DMV show supporting his latest album, IT’S BEEN AWFUL — released back in May. With a massive billboard screen and a stage reminiscent of his Tennessee roots, Zay rocked the stage for over an hour, playing the majority of the album along with all the fan favorites from his discography.
The night began with an opening set from Isaiah’s newest label-mate Alemeda, TDE’s first rock artist. She brought an unexpected pop-punk energy to the room full of Hip-Hop heads, but was welcomed and definitely left the stage with some new fans.
The lights went dark as the first of several cinematic interlude videos played at The Fillmore on August 17. These videos played between songs throughout the show, most of which were extended versions of Zay’s Sunny Roshi TV series, where he’s running an underground radio show from a silver camper in the middle of nowhere before things get…well, awful. The series was released in the weeks leading up to the album’s release and features many of his TDE label-mates and frequent collaborators. The first video featured a battered and bloody Zay limping through a cow field in the middle of nowhere as memories flash in his head until he collapses in pain and two shadow-y figures appear. The real Rashad stumbled up the stairs onto the elevated back of the stage in the same bloody, tattered outfit from the video, and sat down in the far corner of the stage as he performed the album’s intro, “THE NEW SUBLIME,” to open things up.
Watch Isaiah Rashad’s official music video for “Same Sh!t” on YouTube:
Zaywop miraculously healed from his injuries and hopped up off the ground as the song ended, bringing the energy in the room up with him as he performed “M.O.M.” The song ended with a beat switch to the Outkast classic, “B.O.B,” that blew my mind at the fact that I’d never caught the similarities between the two records before that moment. At this point, he stopped to acknowledge the crowd and thank the DMV for bringing him back out. He got back to the music shortly after, performing a version of “Scared 2 Look Down” interpolated with the Big Tymers hood classic “Get Your Roll On,” and led the crowd in his own version of the dance. He exited stage left as another video clip played, this one featuring his TDE label-mates, Schoolboy Q and SIR. Lil Sunny returned in a new outfit and sat down in a chair on stage as the screen changed into a convenience store sign, “We Accept EBT 24/7 FREE LUNCH.” He performed “Free Lunch” and had everyone singing along, word for word, for the biggest pop of the night.
Isaiah jumped down into the photo pit during his performance of “What U Sed” and took over one of his videographer’s cameras during Doechii’s verse, filming the front row of the crowd so they could see themselves on screen. He returned to the stage and got the whole room bouncing as he did “Park” before another video played, this time featuring SZA, before sitting down on the platform center stage to do “Boy in Red” as the lyric video played behind him and everyone sang along. He hopped back up and danced for the whole song as he performed “SUPAFICIAL,” and followed it up by teasing “West Savannah,” before transitioning to “Heavenly Father” and starting up the sing-a-long that was so good Zay said that it was the best crowd of the tour so far.
Check out Isaiah Rashad’s latest album IT’S BEEN AWFUL on Spotify:
The next video played with Sunny in a pickup truck getting pulled over by the police after picking up two women hitchhikers on the side of the road. He returned to the platform stage and rocked the place with a performance of “GTKY” that made a woman scream out, “ISAIAH I LOVE YOU” as the song ended. The room went dark, and the spotlight shone on Rashad sitting in a chair as he did “AIN’T GIVIN’ UP,” before immediately bringing the energy back up to around a 7 with “Wat’s Wong” before sending it to a 10 with “Lay Wit Ya.” There’s something about Duke Deuce’s ad-libs that create this energy like Lil Jon in the early 2000’s and make people lose it. Zay even performed most of Duke’s verse himself, which he didn’t do for any other feature throughout the night. Smoke plied on to the stage as thunder clouds overtook the screen as Zay went into the album’s lead single “SAME SH!T,” taking a low, monotone song and turning it up to the max, with the crowd bouncing along to every word of the chorus.
Sunny cocked his finger pistol not once, but twice before turning it on himself and blowing himself away as the beat to “Headshots (4r Da Locals)” dropped and he got into the song. The room cheered for Zay before he shushed everyone down, thanking everyone for their support for all these years, giving him a gold or platinum single on each of his first three albums. He took a second to shout out the sound person as well as his uncle, who was working as his stage manager and had saved him from falling several times. Isaiah closed things out with “4r Da Squaw” before saying “DC if you need me just call me baby, I love you” and heading off stage.
Another video played before Zay returned for an encore, removing his shirt before performing “Do I Look High” followed by “RIP Young” to end things on a high note. He jumped down from the platform to the front of the main stage as the song ended, and asked everyone to close their eyes, bow their heads, and to pray for him. “Regardless of your religion, or your lack of religion, or your ethnicity, or your sexuality, or whatever your -ity or whatever the fuck you got going on in your life is, check it out, we gonna do a little something for the people and a little something for the people that don’t know, I want y’all to pray for me.” A collage of video clips from throughout Isaiah’s career as well as his influences appeared on the screen as “The Prayer” played, an unreleased interlude from way back in 2017 that your average Rashad fan might not even know of. He continued to perform the song as he walked backstage as the cameras followed him almost like the end of a comedy special, he took his earbuds out and handed them to his uncle saying “DC I Love Y’all” before the screen went dark and one last video began to roll with movie credits acompanied by the “Dirty Words Freestyle” video played us out of the venue.
The Lil’ Sunny’s Awful Road Trip Tour is really just getting started and goes on through out September.
Grab your tickets to see it for yourself.
Below are some more photos from Isaiah Rashad’s performance at The Fillmore Silver Spring on August 17, 2026. All photos copyright and courtesy of AJ Waugh (wauffleznotwaffles.com).
