Approximately nine days before the return of Coachella, the festival has verified allegations that Kanye West has withdrawn from his scheduled appearance as one of the event’s three headliners, and that he has been replaced by Swedish House Mafia and the Weeknd.
There has been no official reason for West’s removal from the festival, which has a roster that repeats itself over two consecutive weekends. West was scheduled as the headline act for the third night of the festival, which has no official explanation for his absence. (The first two evenings are headlined by Harry Styles and Billie Eilish.) West was barred from performing at the Grammy Awards following weeks of erratic and problematic conduct on social media, and the festival’s social media accounts only recognised the change in a revised programme poster issued to the festival’s social media accounts on Wednesday.
The news of West’s alleged departure from Coachella was initially reported on Monday by TMZ, and it was swiftly followed by claims in the music press that the festival was looking for a replacement artist. Swedish House Mafia had been revealed as a part of the festival’s programme months before the event, while the group’s exact place in the lineup was kept undetermined. “Moth to a Flame” is a song by the group that was released in October and features the Weeknd on vocals.
When the coronavirus spread in 2020, the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival was one of the first major events to be cancelled, and it was then postponed multiple times as the pandemic continued, it was one of the first major events to be cancelled. This year’s festival will be held April 15-17 and April 22-24 at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California. Because it is a watershed moment in the multibillion-dollar touring industry, the music industry is keeping a careful eye on what is unfolding. In February, the festival declared that guests would not be needed to produce confirmation of Covid-19 immunisation or a negative test in order to enter, and that masks would not be necessary to participate.
“Donda” was nominated for five Grammy Awards at Sunday’s presentation, including album of the year. West, who now goes by the moniker Ye, has been nominated for five Grammy Awards. He took home two nontelevised rap categories, raising his total number of wins to 24 for his career, however he did not attend the presentation.
Having become the subject of a new Netflix documentary that coincided with the release of a new album-in-progress that was exclusively available on a proprietary $200 speaker device, Kanye West had taken to posting extensively and combatively on social media about his divorce from Kim Kardashian, her dating life, and their ongoing child custody battle, among other topics.
West retaliated with a racist insult on Twitter after Trevor Noah of “The Daily Show,” who was due to host the Grammys, claimed in a segment last month that West’s conduct had crossed the line into harassment and abuse. Noah was the host of the Grammys at the time. West was then banned from Instagram for 24 hours and has not posted anything else on the social media platform since.
Ahead of the festival’s 20th anniversary celebration, Rage Against the Machine, Travis Scott, and Frank Ocean would have performed as headliners. A stampede at Scott’s own Astroworld event in October resulted in the deaths of ten people and the injuries of many more, prompting the rapper to cancel most of his public engagements. Scott, West’s onetime protégé and former brother-in-law, was announced as a special guest on the Coachella stage in a February Instagram post, which West shared with the world.
