Fans of Kanye West will be disappointed with the news that the rapper has pulled out of performing at Coachella.
The artist was set to play the closing night of the festival on both 17 and 24 April.
He would have joined headliners Billie Eilish, Harry Styles and artists Megan Thee Stallion, Disclosure, Doja Cat, Jamie XX and Swedish House Mafia.
Currently, no one has confirmed a reason behind the decision. West’s Instagram page – where he is usually extremely vocal – stayed quiet after the news was released.
However the rapper, who has legally changed his name to Ye, has been volatile over the last several months, which culminated with him being banned from performing at the Grammys for “concerning online behaviour”. Reports also say that the rapper had not rehearsed or prepared for the upcoming show.
West had made dozens of aggressive Instagram posts about his ex-wife Kim Kardashian’s new boyfriend Pete Davidson, calling him “skete” and “garbage”. Ye then released two music videos which both showed a Pete-like character being attacked. In the first, he is decapitated and kidnapped by a West-looking figure, in the second he is being beat up.
Ye had also then lashed out online at Trevor Noah, who ran a ten minute clip on The Daily Show about the couple’s ongoing fallout, in which he said that West was harassing Kim and then compared the situation to his own “abusive household”.
“One of the most powerful, one of the richest women in the world, [is] unable to get her ex to stop texting her, to stop chasing after her, to stop harassing her,” said Noah.
Ye responded by directing a racial slur towards Noah, and he was subsequently suspended from Instagram for 24 hours.
The rapper was also going be joined on the Coachella stage by Travis Scott, who hasn’t made a major concert appearance since his November 5 set at Astroworld festival. Ten people died, and hundreds were injured, after being crushed in the crowd.
In mid-February Ye then threatened to pull out of Coachella after he judged that Billie Eilish had made a dig at Scott over the Houston event. Eilish had stopped her show to send an inhaler to a fan, saying, “I wait for people to be okay before I keep going.” Whether the comment was directed at Scott is unknown, but Ye posted on Instagram that Eilish needed to apologise.
The rapper wrote, “TRAV WILL BE WITH ME AT COACHELLA BUT NOW I NEED BILLIE TO APOLOGIZE BEFORE I PERFORM.” Eilish did later reply do the Instagram post, saying, “literally never said a thing about Travis. was just helping a fan.” And that’s where the drama seemed to have ended – until now.
West is no stranger to cancelling appearances – he cancelled some of the final dates of his 2016 Pablo tour, and also pulled out of Coachella in 2020, before the festival was ultimately cancelled because of the pandemic.
With the festival just ten days away, now the big question remains as to whether anyone will be able to fill his headliner gap in time.
