Looks like Coachella's Sunday Service is no more. Reports that Kanye West was pulling out of the Indio, Calif. festival surfaced earlier this week, though organisers stayed mum on the subject. But Thursday, the event announced that The Weeknd and Swedish House Mafia will now be taking over as Sunday headliners, de factor confirming West's departure from the billing. Harry Styles and Billie Eilish will still lead the earlier weekend dates.
West's set was supposed to take place across both Coachella Sundays on April 17 and April 24. And while Swedish House Mafia was already tapped in to perform as part of their reunion and album launch, The Weeknd is an entirely new addition.
This news is only the latest in the whirlwind that has surrounded West as of late. The rapper-slash-designer has been a trending topic online for a couple of months due to a lot of, seemingly, uncontrollable behaviour online including: harassing ex-wife Kim Kardashian and her boyfriend Pete Davidson, calling out of fellow Coachella headliner Billie Eilish and hauling racial slurs at Grammys host Trevor Noah (the latter of which saw him getting his Instagram suspended and his Grammy performance rescinded). Days before news of West's drop out of Coachella was announced, a source close to the Kardashians reported to Page Six that “For the sake of the kids, Kanye has told Kim he’s not making any public appearances or inflammatory social media statements, and he will go away somewhere to get better.”
The festival announced the new headliners on April 6. This performance will mark the first on-stage performance for Swedish House Mafia in five years. The EDM kings initially broke up in 2013 after putting on "One Last Tour" for their fans, only to then put on a surprise performance in Miami in 2018. Their debut album is set to drop April 15, the same day Coachella begins. This is the first time they will be taking the stage with The Weeknd, who headlined the festival in 2018. It is currently unclear what direction the show will take seeing as the acts only have two collaborations, with one being a remix of The Weeknd's own song.
It's safe to say we've all had a hard couple of years, and the Coachella organisers have not been spared. Before the pandemic broke out in 2020, Travis Scott, Rage The Machine and Frank Ocean were set to headline that April before the festival had to be postponed due to health regulations. Ocean since then postponed his Coachella appearance to 2023 and, in the face of the Astroworld tragedy where 10 concertgoers died and hundreds were injured, Travis Scott's set was replaced with Kanye West. It was frequently rumoured that West intended to bring Scott out during his set. Now neither will be performing.
With the festival being just over a week away, let's hope there aren't anymore surprises.
Ammal Hassan is a writer and Esquire's Snapchat Editor. She covers all things culture with a focus on music and pop culture. She is from Nairobi, Kenya and lives in New York City.
