The 2018 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival announced a lineup that made history for African music. The event ran across two weekends, April 13th to 22nd, with The Weeknd, Beyoncé and Eminem as the three headline acts.
The African continent had real representation that year. Wizkid was billed to perform — a significant milestone for Nigerian music at the time, given that Coachella was and remains one of the most prestigious festival stages in the world. Jidenna, the Nigerian-American artist behind Classic Man, was also on the bill. South African DJ and producer Black Coffee completed the African trio, representing a generation of artists taking continental sounds to international festival audiences.
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Wizkid – Kese (Dance) | Morayo AlbumThe rest of the lineup included SZA, Tyler the Creator, Vince Staples, Cardi B, Migos, French Montana, 6LACK, ODESZA and Miguel among others. Beyoncé's performance that year — which became known as Beychella — went on to be considered one of the greatest festival headlining sets of all time, with a full HBCU marching band, a Destiny's Child reunion and a two-hour set that no one who watched it forgot. It was later released as a Netflix documentary and live album titled Homecoming.
For Wizkid, Coachella 2018 was part of a period of rapid global expansion following the success of Come Closer and his collaboration with Drake on One Dance. By 2025 he had gone on to headline his own sold-out O2 Arena shows in London and release Morayo, his sixth studio album, which became Nigeria's most-streamed album of 2025. The 2018 Coachella appearance was an early marker of where that trajectory was heading. Black Coffee has since gone on to win the 2022 Grammy Award for Best Dance/Electronic Album for his project We Dance Again.
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