Doja Cat gave a thrilling end to the weekend’s festivities, bringing an extension of her Scarlet tour to her Sunday night set at Coachella. The Grammy-winning hitmaker last played the festival in 2022; she is the second Black woman to headline the event, after Beyoncé in 2018.
The 28-year-old MC’s performance was a hard-nosed and hot-blooded spectacle, conceived of pure, unadulterated id. Sparing little in the way of stage banter, Doja opened with a sample from Madonna’s biting 1994 anthem, “Human Nature” — then blazed through several tracks off her 2023 album, Scarlet, such as “Agora Hills” and “Paint the Town Red.” Sampled with Dionne Warwick’s 1964 classic, “Walk On By,” the latter became Doja’s first No. 1 song as a soloist last September.
Special guests on Sunday included the a capella group The Joy, who share South African heritage with Doja; they were followed by MC 21 Savage, who rapped opposite Doja in the 2024 track, “H. N. I. E.” Bashfully wielding a bouquet of baby’s breath, Teezo Touchdown joined Doja for a live debut of their song “Masc,” as featured in Scarlet 2 CLAUDE: the deluxe edition of Scarlet, which dropped last week. A$AP Rocky also emerged from backstage, raring to throw down to a metal version of their brand new song,
