Swedish House Mafia was announced as Kanye West‘replacement for the Coachella music festival in Indigo, California on Wednesday (Apr. 6), but the EDM stars aren’t the only ones taking over for Ye. Their “Moth To A Flame” collaborator, The Weeknd, will join them to perform in the Donda rapper’s headlining slot for both Sundays of the festival, April 17 and 24. Kanye had pulled out of the festival about two weeks before he was set to take the stage to close out the first weekend.
The Party & The After Party pic.twitter.com/8gT2bF3x5j
— Coachella (@coachella) April 6, 2022
The Weeknd and Swedish House Mafia will join previously announced headliners Billie Eilish and Harry Styles. While the details of why Kanye pulled out of the festival are still unknown, as report from TMZ pointed out. The report did note that allegedly he’d planned to include a performance from Travis Scott, the “Sicko Mode” rapper’s first major performance at a festival since the Astroworld Tragedy in November. In light of the tragedy, Travis had been pulled from the lineup in December, according to Billboard.
Kanye had threatened to pull out of the festival months before he did in an Instagram post back in February. Ye had written the lengthy comment after a video went viral of Billie stopping a concert to check on a fan who was in distress, which some interpreted as her throwing shade at Travis. Kanye demanded that the Happier Than Ever singer apologize to Travis. “NO ONE INTENDED THIS TO HAPPEN TRAV DIDN’T HAVE ANY IDEA OF WHAT WAS HAPPENING WHEN HE WAS ON STAGE AND WAS VERY HURT BY WHAT HAPPENED AND YES TRAV WILL BE WITH ME AT COACHELLA BUT NOW I NEED BILLIE TO APOLOGIZE BEFORE I PERFORM,” he wrote. Billie responded by pointing out that she didn’t call out the rapper. “literally never said a thing about travis. was just helping a fan,” she wrote in a comment.
The cancelled Coachella appearance came shortly after Kanye also skipped out on the 2022 Grammy Awards. Even though he hadn’t been announced as a performer yet, Kanye reportedly had a performance scrapped because of his online behavior. Despite the performance being nixed, he won two Grammys on Sunday April 3 for Best Melodic Rap Performance and Best Rap Song, which he wasn’t there to accept.