Karol G’s Coachella Review – Exciting Collection Dedicated to the Festival’s Hall of Fame | Coachella

toDining on the final night of Coachella’s first weekend, after more than a dozen songs, several stunning costume changes and some of the most beautiful dancing ever seen in a headlining set, Colombian superstar Karol G finally introduced herself in English: “I’m Carolina Giraldo from Medellin, Colombia, and today, I’m the first Latina to headline Coachella,” she said to deafening cheers from a crowd dotted with Mexican and Puerto Rican flags. Venezuela, Colombia and other Latin countries. She added: “I’m very happy and very proud, but at the same time, it feels like it’s too late. It’s been 27 years since this festival.” Her honest and pointed remarks brought to mind Beyoncé in 2018, where she thanked the festival for allowing her to be the first black woman to headline: “Ain’t this a bitch bout?”

Beyoncé is a name to conjure up — we may never again see a group as talented and culturally significant as Beychella — but on Sunday night, Karol G certainly made a case for inclusion in the festival’s Hall of Fame. Her 90-minute set, which sounded like it had been years in the making and effort, like Bad Bunny’s iconic theme song three years earlier, was a statement full of Latin pride and American unity as well as the joy of music so deadly, rocking, and dancing so relentless that I broke a sweat on the coldest night of the festival. From the first moment she appeared, resplendent in a sparkling gold bikini and flanked by an army of curvy background dancers, the undulations of her hips were visible to the naked eye from the back rows — “Even NASCAR doesn’t have these curves,” she boasts in Latina Furiva’s saucy opener — the literal and physical fireworks barely stopped. If it’s going to take 27 years, we might as well have an undeniable celebration.

More than most other major artists this year, Karol G delivered a show that seemed just as designed for the live experience as it was streaming. Perhaps it was the scale of her delirious, primal set (the loose theme being the inherently primal brutality of women) that lifted her nearly two floors off the ground, or the extreme excitement of many of the backup dancers, but she was the only performer I saw that weekend who did not appear dwarfed in front of the main stage, able to perform in front of the fan halfway down the lawn and the neatly mounted cameras buzzing around her many dances. Any frustration over her showing up half an hour late — apparently there was too much lighting to secure in that cave — was instantly melted away by a steamy opening set that mixed the hardest tracks from her 2025 album/Latin music treatise Tropicoqueta with hits from Mañana Será Bonito that cemented her 2023 stardom.

Not to be outdone, La Bichota — a moniker she coined that means “leader bitch” — resurfaced after a thankfully brief break in a stunning carnival-style feather headdress for the mambo-laden Tropicoqueta track, the first of several nods to a wide range of Latin music history. Speaking in Spanish, the nearly 35-year-old singer seamlessly blended a round of regional Latin styles with her own sexy reggaeton pop. Tropicoquita gave way to an all-female Mexican mariachi band, whose sound on Ese Hombre Es Malo was wonderfully layered, and then a duet with Mexican-American pop star Becky G, who made more direct observations about the current American political climate than Karol G could or perhaps should say: “¡Que viva Mexico! ¡Que viva Colombia! “To all immigrants, we love you very much,” she said in Spanish before switching to English. “You heard what I said.” A sad song with post-sex cigarettes, Greg Gonzalez moved into some ankle-deep water choreography to the point where I glimpsed the feminine divinity, filmed as if she were in an erogenous club; Then to a solo interlude by Puerto Rican reggaeton legend Wesin for a series of hits — Saco, Mayor QU, Rakata — that received some of the loudest sing-alongs in a very loud show.

Perhaps it goes without saying that celebrating Latino pride on a giant stage, at this moment in the United States, is both symbolic and difficult: say nothing of the government’s immigration campaign targeting Spanish-speaking Latinos and you risk appearing timid and isolated; To say something and risk being accused of incompetence, not to mention the anger of the country’s leadership. Karol Gee, no stranger to controversy over what she does and doesn’t say, has threaded a very fine needle. “It’s not just about me, it’s about the Latino community, and the love of my people,” she said 10 minutes before her show ended. “At the same time, this is for the Latinos who have suffered in this country recently. We stand with them.”

She emphasized the point of “unity, resilience and strength” — “I just want everyone to be proud of where I come from,” she added — with an energetic cover of “Mi Tierra” by pioneering Cuban-American artist Gloria Estefan, then a finale by electronic dance music band Provenza, who used the full power of the main stage. With rainbow lasers, strobe lights, fireworks, pyrotechnics, and confetti all at once, and not one but three falsetto drops and a megawatt smile that outshined the stage lights, there was no mistaking the message: This may have been Karol G’s moment, but the victory belongs to many others.