Coachella 2026: Karol G's historic headlining set was lusty, powerful and overdue

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On 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.“It feels late,” the Colombian superstar said onstage, in a brief English-language address to the audience in a set otherwise fully in Spanish.

“ It’s been 27 years of this festival going on...Before me, there were so many great Latino artists that gave me the opportunity.”“Latinos have been struggling in this country lately,” she continued.“We stand for them.

I’m proud this brings out the best of us—unity, 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.”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.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’t move like you want, where you want, you’re not free.Karol G finally commanding this stage was living proof it’s possible to kick that door in.Karol’s most recent LP “Tropicoqueta” was a history lesson, a joyful and well-studied rip through decades of Latin folk and pop.

But this set started older.Primeval, even.“She was born under a full moon in the arms of mother nature.

The jaguars taught her to run, the birds to fly,” her intro video intoned.“A storm of pain fell upon her and all the women of earth.”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.Karol came of age during the ascent of reggae...