Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival finally announced this year’s historic lineup. The largest music festival in North America, with 125,000 participants per day, will feature a Latin music artist and K-pop for the first time since the festival’s inception in 1999.
Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny and Korean pop group Blackpink are set to headline the first two days with Frank Ocean, who was originally scheduled for the 2020 festival that was canceled due to Covid-19, headlining the third day.
Bad Bunny will not only be the first Latin music artist, but also the first Spanish-language artist, to headline Coachella — a much-deserved slot, given that he was Spotify’s overall most-streamed artist in 2022.
In 2019, BLACKPINK’s Coachella show was not only their first full U.S. public performance, but also the first time that any Coachella set had been simultaneously broadcast in New York City’s Times Square. This year, when the South Korean quartet of Jisoo, Jennie, Rosé, and Lisa graduates to the main stage on Saturday — widely considered the festival’s most coveted and prestigious slot — they will continue to make Coachella history not only as the festival’s first K-pop headliner, but as the first Asian headliner of any genre, as well as the first-ever girl group to headline. (In general, very few female acts have received top billing at Coachella; the only others to share that honor are Björk, Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Ariana Grande, and Billie Eilish.)
Headlining Sunday will be secluded rapper Frank Ocean, who was supposed to play Coachella 2020 before it was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and disappointingly was not on the bill when the festival returned to Indio, Calif.’s Empire Polo Club in 2022. Ocean hasn’t performed since March 2019, and has not released an album since 2016’s Blonde and Endless. With that in mind, hopes that Ocean will debut new material at (or before?) the April festival run high among fans.
The 2023 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival will take place April 14-16 and April 21-23 at Indio’s Empire Polo Grounds, with YouTube returning as the exclusive livestream partner for both weekends. For more information, go to coachella.com.
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