She may be just three shows into her first-ever headlining tour, but Megan Thee Stallion looked all the part of a seasoned star onstage Saturday night at Little Caesars Arena.

Five years after breaking big with “Hot Girl Summer,” the Grammy-winning rapper has embarked on a transatlantic arena tour of that same name, with Detroit an early stop on the run.

A sellout crowd was there to greet the 29-year-old Houston hitmaker for what was a girls-night-out kind of affair, with many fans arriving at LCA in their own variations of the curvaceous body suits and flesh-baring monokinis Megan Thee Stallion would embrace onstage.

It was a night writhing with snake imagery, sexual bravado and near-nonstop booty shaking. The show was as much about Megan’s confident, assertive presence as it was her ever-growing repertoire of kinky hits — a salvo that started Saturday with her latest chart-topper, “Hiss,” and its barrage of cleverly barbed celebrity shade.

Joined by eight dancers who at one point joined the star for a synchronized twerking number, Megan Thee Stallion kept the pace upbeat and the downtime minimal. The only extended pause for breath came with a mid-show segment in which she invited groups of excited fans — her Hotties — onto the stage for their own personalized dancing exhibitions.

Amid the extravagant raunchiness that often bordered on camp, that was a touch of come-one, come-all togetherness and accessibility, much like the assorted selfies she snapped on audience members’ mobile phones throughout the night.

As a rapper, Megan Thee Stallion is formidable — she built a name via her electrifying freestyles, after all — and her rapid-fire rhymes accentuated songs such as “Sex Talk,” “Kitty Kat” and “Stalli.” Elsewhere, numbers like “Thot S—” rode high on catchy hooks, with the likes of “Big Ole Freak” becoming arena-wide chant-alongs and “BOA” serving up her distinctive brand of side-eye.

After reported technical glitches on the tour’s opening nights, Saturday’s mix was crisp and full, and the star’s mouth-twisting vowels and spicy wordplay were only occasionally lost in the sonic boom.

Megan Thee Stallion’s trademark, defiant swagger did give way to a little vulnerability with the recent single exploring her battles with depression, “Cobra,” which wrapped up the concert’s opening segment.

“Wanna Be,” with guest Glorilla, and the 2020 Cardi B smash “WAP” helped the show start a crescendo that finished with the biggest hit of Megan’s career, the Beyoncé-featuring “Savage.”

For all the night’s energy — and props to the likable Megan, that rarely flagged — the show threatened to become a monotonous affair, offering few variations in sound, movement or expression. At a crisp 85 minutes, it clocked out probably exactly when it needed to.

Rising rapper Glorilla had kicked off the evening with a 45-minute set of Memphis-fueled hip-hop and her own brand of self-empowerment.

Contact Detroit Free Press music writer Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or bmccollum@freepress.com.

Evidently, Willie Nelson really can’t wait to get on the road again.

Less than a year after bringing his Outlaw Music Festival to Alpine Valley — and less than a month after turning 91 — the country legend was back on a Milwaukee stage Saturday night at the BMO Pavilion. It was Milwaukee’s first big outdoor concert of the year.

It was clear he wasn’t playing out of habit or ego. Of the many Willie Nelson concerts I’ve seen in town over the past decade, Saturday’s was among his most engaging.

Sure, the set was short at just 62 minutes, as has been the case for a while now, and the setlist was heavy on familiar standards. Age perhaps has prompted him to sit for the entire show, and Nelson let the newest member of his Family band, Waylon Payne, take lead vocals for three songs: Merle Haggard’s “Workin’ Man Blues,” and Kris Kristofferson’s “Help Me Make It Through the Night” and “Me and Bobby McGee.”

But even then, Nelson never coasted, singing most of the words to “Me and Bobby McGee.” He was especially animated for “Workin’ Man Blues,” peppering the performance with grooving guitar licks on his trusty and battered acoustic guitar Trigger and ending the jam with a kick of his right leg and a proud thumbs up from Payne.

It was through Trigger that Nelson’s passion shined most Saturday night.

There’s long been a roughness to his strumming that can be off-putting for the unprepared, but that’s part of the charm of a Willie Nelson show. And there remain plenty of diamonds in that rough.

He contradicted the sentiment of “Still Is Still Moving to Me” with swift and nimble Spanish guitar-style runs, and channeled Chuck Berry with ’50s rock swagger on Hank Williams’ “Move It on Over.” With tender, contemplative melodies he teed up his longest running tour mate Mickey Raphael, who offered a response via soulful harmonica solo for “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground.” (The band was rounded out by Paul English on drums, and Kevin Smith on bass Saturday.)

And with understated but undeniably smirking bravado, Nelson’s guitar dazzle for “I Never Cared for You” was the equivalent of dancing on a vanquished foe’s grave.

While his guitar runs would often soar, Nelson as a vocalist remains engagingly down to earth, the direct, conversational tone of his voice seasoned ever so slightly with a sprinkle of soul or a splash of sass.

That approach served Saturday’s punchlines much better than a heavy wink and nudge, drawing hollers with his cool evisceration of “Mr. Purified Country” by asking “is your head so far up that you can’t pull it out” on “Write Your Own Songs,” and drawing laughs singing about looking good in his jeans on Mac Davis’ “It’s Hard to Be Humble.”

Nelson’s gentle vocal delivery also enhanced his fleeting moments of rambunctiousness, like the growl of his voice in the repeated utterance of “Mamma” for a boisterous singalong of Ed and Patsy Bruce’s “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys.”

And it’s a safe bet that Nelson’s rendition of “Always on My Mind” Saturday will be burned into many Milwaukee fans’ memories: the humble confessions of his neglect, the lonesome guitar lines conveying the depth of his regrets.

That song, and the 20 others Nelson touched on Saturday, were received with an immense level of gratitude fitting for a goodbye. But Nelson also made it clear, through intact talent and his own appreciation, that he’s not ready to bow out just yet. So long as he’s still able to tour, there’s no doubt Nelson would be happy to see Milwaukee again after he turns 92.

5 takeaways from Willie Nelson’s Milwaukee concert, including opener Ryan Larkins

• It was a perfect night for the season’s first major outdoor concert in Milwaukee, with clear skies and a cool breeze coming off the lake.
• When the show ended, in between blowing kisses, Nelson tossed a cowboy hat into the crowd like a frisbee and threw out a few red bandanas, including one he pulled off his head.
• Two other fans also special recognition from Nelson during “Always on My Mind.” He noticed the women standing right in front of him near the song’s end, giving them a wave as he sang before he made them the subjects of his song, pointing to them and smiling as he sang. When the song ended, the women gave each other a huge hug.
• The moment Willie Nelson launched into “Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die,” the smell of marijuana wafted through my section of the pavilion. Nelson no doubt would be proud.
• Opener Ryan Larkins confessed to being nervous on the BMO Pavilion stage Saturday playing for one of the largest crowds of his career opening for his favorite artist. But it was the only evidence of nerves across a 25-minute set marked by Larkins’ humility and smooth baritone (close your eyes when he talked and you could almost imagine Austin Butler was channeling Elvis). Larkins honored his predecessors in multiple ways, like with a bluster-free cover of “I Love This Bar” in honor of the late Toby Keith, and with original “King of Country Music” that name-drops loads of legends and honors country music craftsmanship. It’s Larkins’ first song to hit country radio, but don’t let that aw-shucks charm fool you — he’s already scored a hit as a songwriter, Cody Johnson’s “The Painter,” which he saved for last, not so much to boast of his bona fides but to honor the song’s inspiration, his wife of 15 years.

Willie Nelson’s BMO Pavilion setlist

1. “Whiskey River”
2. “Stay a Little Longer”
3. “Still Is Still Moving to Me”
4. “Bloody Mary Morning”
5. “I Never Cared for You”
6. “Workin’ Man Blues”
7. “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys”
8. “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground”
9. “On the Road Again”
10. “Always On My Mind”
11. “Good Hearted Woman”
12. “Help Me Make It Through the Night”
13. “Move It On Over”
14. “Georgia (On My Mind)”
15. “I Been to Georgia on a Fast Train”
16. “Me and Bobby McGee”
17. “Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die”
18. “Write Your Own Songs”
19. “Will the Circle Be Unbroken”/”I’ll Fly Away”
20. “It’s Hard to Be Humble”

Contact Piet at (414) 223-5162 or plevy@journalsentinel.com. Follow him on X at @pietlevy or Facebook at facebook.com/PietLevyMJS.

MINNEAPOLIS — At the corner of East 38th and Chicago, the Minnesota Timberwolves are not front of mind.

The people who come here, 10 minutes or so from downtown, where the city’s NBA team is in the midst of a renaissance, don’t bring up Anthony Edwards or the unceasing comparisons of him to Michael Jordan. They don’t seem to care much about Rudy Gobert winning his fourth Defensive Player of the Year award, or Naz Reid getting his first Sixth Man of the Year award. They have come, this day — from Michigan and Oregon and Colorado and California and New York and Ghana — to see the spot where George Floyd was murdered, in front of the Cup Foods store, and how they reconcile what that means to them.

They are, all of them, quiet, contemplative, nervous. Black, White, Latino, male and female, on foot or bikes; it doesn’t matter. They don’t know where to stand or where they should walk or what they should say. Knowing what happened here, they seem not to want to trespass on the grounds.

An Asian woman has brought flowers. She is crying.

“Would you like a hug?” asks Bridgett Floyd, George Floyd’s younger sister, in town last weekend. They embrace.

East 38th and Chicago is in the heart of what people in this neighborhood call “The Free State of George Floyd,” more commonly known as George Floyd Square. At intersections surrounding the corner, raised fist sculptures patrol the blocks now rather than the police, and the Pan-African Flag of Black liberation flies high.

The handmade memorials and flowers surround the spot in the street where a former Minneapolis police officer choked the life out of Floyd, who was in handcuffs and lying on the street, by kneeling on his neck for nine minutes, on May 25, 2020, as the officer’s partners rejected urging from people watching — and, vitally, though achingly, recording on their phones — to let Floyd sit up and breathe.

Floyd’s death — the officer who killed him was convicted in 2021 of unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter and sentenced to 22 1/2 years in prison — sparked worldwide protests condemning police violence against people of color. The decentralized movement known as Black Lives Matter led marches across the country, demanding civic and political change.

For a few fleeting months afterward, the nation seemed to be at least trying to rectify some of its most egregious blind spots on race and systemic racism. Corporate America committed to addressing hiring and promotion inequities, bolstering Diversity, Equity and Inclusion departments, as did schools and universities. Cities and towns removed Confederate monuments and statues from public squares and grounds and renamed schools named for Confederate generals.

The power of the movement, though, has been manifested by the intensity of the backlash against it in the nearly four years since Floyd’s murder.

As the four-year milestone of Floyd’s murder approaches, this city and the nation seem unsure of what to do next, from the macro of the next stages of the social justice movement — and who wants, and does not want, that movement to proceed apace — to the micro of how to develop this space.

And, within that micro, does the wild success of the Timberwolves, who’ve become one of the NBA’s best teams, reaching heights they haven’t reached in two decades and who play in a sold-out arena full of well-heeled fans, mean anything? Does it have any tangible impact?

“The city wants to sit down and talk to us. But the city’s the reason Floyd’s dead,” says Eliza Wesley, the Minneapolis resident and “gatekeeper” of the Square, who patrols the grounds almost daily to ensure visitors know as much of the story of Floyd and the community as possible.

In the early days following Floyd’s murder, she gave out free masks and hand sanitizer, controlled the endless traffic flow of cars going around the small circle that intersects East 38th and Chicago and continued to fundraise and keep local food pantries running as COVID-19 raged.

The local residents and Floyd’s family aren’t angry with the Wolves. They appreciated the gestures the team made after Floyd’s death, and that Karl-Anthony Towns has been here, early and often. Amid his own grief in 2020, after his mother, Jacqueline, died from COVID, Towns came here, just as Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock and others have in the years since.

But people come here, and they leave, and it’s been almost four years now, and these people in the community are still here, day after day, and they want George Floyd and his death to be honored in the way they think he should be honored. They’d like the Wolves and the other pro sports teams here to play a front-facing role, with their profile and resources.

The Wolves have their own answer to the impact question.

“My answer is yes, and I’ll tell you why,” says Tru Pettigrew, the chief diversity and inclusion officer for the Wolves and the WNBA’s Lynx.

“The unfortunate, man, the tragic murder of George Floyd was actually a catalyst to how and why our team has actually become much more intentional about being present in the community, and building relationships with the community,” Pettigrew said. “That’s how I came into the organization. After the murder, myself and so many others, across the league and across the country, in these positions of chief diversity and inclusion officers, these positions emerged at a rapid pace across the country. The Timberwolves were no different. Where we may have been a little different (was), one, we were the epicenter of so much social and racial unrest, because that’s where the murder of George Floyd took place.

“But, also, I give Ethan (Casson, the Wolves’ CEO) a lot of credit, because when he brought me in, I came in as the head of diversity and player programs. I came in on the basketball side of the business. After that first year, he and I both realized that the passion and the vision and mission in which I was there best served the organization on a more holistic level.

“Working with the players was great. But this needed to be something that permeated the whole organization, across all four franchises (including the Wolves’ G League affiliate, the Iowa Wolves, and the franchise’s 2K League team, T-Wolves Gaming). My role was evolved to chief impact officer, very intentional to impact the entire community, the culture of the entire organization, and how we showed up in communities.”

Pettigrew was hired by Gersson Rosas, the Wolves’ former president of basketball operations who is now the Knicks’ senior vice president of basketball operations. Originally, Pettigrew’s job description dovetailed with many in the community. He was tasked with building bridges between the Wolves’ players and the Minneapolis police.

“That relationship was strained,” he says now. “It was already a very fragile relationship with law enforcement and the Black community to begin with. Now, you add this, and the players were like, ‘Yo, we’re not feeling MPD.’ That was really my initial assignment.”

The team met with Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and other local officials and civic groups in the summer and fall of 2020, often via video during the worst of COVID-19. The team connected with then-Minneapolis NAACP president Leslie Redmond and Elizer Darris, the former co-executive director of the Minnesota Freedom Fund.

That doesn’t mean every relationship with every community group was great, then or now. Where there was community connection, the team tried to double down and replicate it. But where there wasn’t, the Wolves tried to listen to why “and start to resolve and reconcile those relationships,” Pettigrew said.

The club reached out to the Floyd family, many of whom lived in Houston, inviting them to a Rockets-Wolves game when the Wolves came to Houston in 2021, a week after the guilty verdicts came down. Two of Floyd’s brothers, Philonise and Rodney, and his cousin Brandon Williams came to the game. They received a game ball from the team, game-worn jerseys from Edwards and Towns and a custom team jersey with Floyd’s name on the back.

After the win in Houston, Karl-Anthony Towns, Anthony Edwards and Josh Okogie met with George Floyd’s family (who live in Houston).

They gave them the game ball from the Sacramento win, which they dedicated to Floyd and his family.@Timberwolves
(via @JonKrawczynski) pic.twitter.com/OoxkPTGewY

— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) April 28, 2021

“I told them, I don’t know what I can do, but whatever I can do, let me know,” Pettigrew said. “We can commit to you as an organization, you will never have to pay for a game (in Minneapolis), because I knew basketball could serve as a welcome distraction for them. … I knew they were going through so much trauma, as a family. That brotherhood just grew and grew. Over the years, they said, once the cameras went away, and the lights turned down, they said, ‘Y’all were the only organization that still rock with us. Everybody else was just doing it for the photo ops.’”

Pettigrew ticks off, with pride, the off-court honors the team has received in the succeeding years.

The Wolves won the NBA’s Inclusion Leadership Award this year, given out annually by the league to recognize “an organization’s history of and commitment to inclusion as a key business strategy, evaluating the team’s full slate of inclusion programming.”

The organization got the award for its “Pack the Vote” initiative, which focused on providing nonpartisan voter education, increasing voter registration and civic engagement. That dovetailed with the Wolves’ role in the “Restore the Vote” statewide initiative, a program that restored the voting rights of 50,000 formerly incarcerated citizens in the state. The bill passed the Minnesota Legislature early last year and was signed by Gov. Tim Walz in March 2023.

#RestoreTheVote was signed into law today! Huge congrats to the 50K+ Minnesotans who are having their right to vote restored! And ❤ to all who put in the work to help make our state better. @RTVMN

— Karl-Anthony Towns (@KarlTowns) March 3, 2023

And, earlier this month, Towns won the NBA’s Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Social Justice Champion Award, named after the Hall of Fame center who has spent much of his life off the court raising awareness for social justice ideals and movements worldwide. Towns represented the Wolves as they promoted Restore the Vote with local civic organizations.

All those honors were well-earned. But they don’t feed the vision of what people on the Square want to happen with this space. As the days, and then years, wore on, the crowds coming to honor Floyd diminished in size. But they didn’t stop. They’ve never stopped.

“We had a group come here from Antarctica,” says Angela Harrelson, Floyd’s aunt, saying a group received dispensation to leave their work on the remote continent to come to Minnesota.

The community wants any development of the Square to come from their hands and minds, not from well-meaning bureaucrats and planners who don’t live here, and don’t know what Floyd’s life and struggles were like. Floyd — everyone, including family members, calls him “Floyd,” not “George” — wrestled with addictions. Ideally, a youth center focusing on job creation and substance abuse rehabilitation, along with a museum/memorial that would house the hundreds of thousands of artifacts left by tourists, would be the centerpieces of a reimagined Square.

And folks out here figure the Wolves, with their individual and group largesse, could help with that.

It has been hard for Bridgett Floyd, who lives in North Carolina, to continue to return to the place where her brother was slain. She was here with other family in the days and weeks after the murder and during the police officers’ 2021 trials. But this was the first time in a couple of years that she’s been back. There is so much pain and, even with all the convictions, unresolved anger.

She feels a calling to keep his memory, and the causes raised by his death, in the public’s consciousness. She hands out flowers she bought to visitors.

“I knew Floyd has been here, and there’s something I have to do here,” she said. “So I’m walking in it.”

Of course, a sports team doesn’t have budgetary power or zoning authority. It can’t conduct environmental studies or call public meetings. It’s but a symbol of a city, and there’s only so much it can do that isn’t performative.

Only a handful of players remain from that 2020 team. Pettigrew is leaving the organization at the end of the playoffs. It’s sports; people come, and they go. And the Wolves are in a knockdown, drag-out fight with the Denver Nuggets that will crescendo with a Game 7 Sunday night in Denver. All their attention and focus are on trying to defeat the world’s best player and the NBA’s defending champions.

When the playoff run ends, though, this community will still be here, waiting for someone to listen to them, work with them and see their dreams come to fruition — dreams no more audacious than the ones George Floyd had for his daughter, Gianna.

“Daddy changed the world,” she said in 2020, on the shoulders of her dad’s friend, former NBA player Stephen Jackson, and she’s right. George Floyd changed the world. He still does, even when people show up here from so far away and can’t explain why they’ve come.

(Top photo of the George Floyd memorial at East 38th and Chicago: David Aldridge / The Athletic)