LOS ANGELES — Provided he doesn’t catch COVID the day before, or end up stuck on a yacht somewhere with Elon Musk, or pull out of the lineup in protest (as he recently threatened to do) because Billie Eilish declined to apologize to Travis Scott for something she didn’t actually say, Kanye West — rapper, producer, designer, provocateur — will headline the final night of next month’s Coachella festival.
The gig will mark West’s second time atop the bill of pop music’s most important fest, following his first headlining performance in 2011. That show, which came on the heels of his sprawling “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” album, was widely hailed as a masterpiece of attitude and theater — “the purest form of hip-hop at the highest level,” as rapper Pusha T, who joined West onstage that night, later described it to Complex.
In the decade since, though, West, now known legally as Ye, has seemingly done everything in his power to keep from being praised that lavishly again. He famously embraced President Donald Trump and said that slavery sounded like “a choice”; he ran for president himself (sort of) and began palling around with Marilyn Manson after Manson was accused of sexual assault. Last week, amid a protracted divorce from Kim Kardashian, he descended to what might be a new low with the release of a crude and disturbing music video for his song “Eazy,” in which he depicts the murder of Kardashian’s boyfriend, comedian Pete Davidson. The video came after weeks of taunting by West that led Kardashian to publicly ask her ex-husband to leave Davidson alone.
