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<\/p>\nOn Sunday night, Karol G became the first Latina to headline Coachella. Along with all her pride in that achievement, she seemed a little angry at that fact too.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels late,\u201d the Colombian superstar said onstage, in a brief English-language address to the audience in a set otherwise fully in Spanish. \u201c It\u2019s been 27 years of this festival going on…Before me, there were so many great Latino artists that gave me the opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLatinos have been struggling in this country lately,\u201d she continued. \u201cWe stand for them. I\u2019m proud this brings out the best of us\u2014unity, resilience, a strong spirit. We want everyone to feel welcome to our culture, our roots, our music, I want everyone to feel proud of where you come from.\u201d<\/p>\n
Karol let those lines here serve as her brief indictment of the present, jackbooted environment around immigration and repression in the U.S. Making belated history by headlining Coachella would seem far removed from those concerns. <\/p>\n
Yet as this sweeping, heady, spectacularly ambitious and relentlessly lusty set showed over its hour and half, the body is the first site of liberation. If you can\u2019t move like you want, where you want, you\u2019re not free. Karol G finally commanding this stage was living proof it\u2019s possible to kick that door in.<\/p>\n
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Karol G performs at the Coachella stage on weekend one of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival at the Empire Polo Club in Indio on Sunday, April 12, 2026. <\/p>\n
(Christina House\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
Karol\u2019s most recent LP \u201cTropicoqueta\u201d was a history lesson, a joyful and well-studied rip through decades of Latin folk and pop. But this set started older. Primeval, even.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was born under a full moon in the arms of mother nature. The jaguars taught her to run, the birds to fly,\u201d her intro video intoned. \u201cA storm of pain fell upon her and all the women of earth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then the stage lit up to show a carved-out cave in a cliffside, housing an absolutely killer all-femme backing band in the grotto and a full company of dancers in every hue of the Americas.<\/p>\n
Karol came of age during the ascent of reggaeton and Latin club music as a new default in pop, and the first third of the show played to those uncompromising but crowd-pleasing strengths. The statement piece \u201cLatina Foreva\u201d whipped into the after-hours club cut \u201cUn Gatito Me Llam\u00f3,\u201d then the hard-spitting \u201cOki Doki.\u201d Her stage arrangement of \u201cEl Makinon\u201d with guest Mariah Angeliq, was so artfully lascivious, dancers composed like a painting but heaving with sex.<\/p>\n
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