While Coachella 2023 headliners Bad Bunny, Blackpink and Frank Ocean will attract the largest crowds and the most IG posts, as ever, it’s the you-saw-them-when acts that will provide future bragging rights to fans in the know. Among the scores of artists we can’t wait to catch in the desert, here are a dozen up-and-comers we wouldn’t dare miss.
APRIL 14 AND 21
Angèle
What Dua Lipa was to the early days of stay-at-home, Angèle might be to whatever kinda-sorta-back-out phase we’re in now. The Belgian disco chanteuse collaborated with Lipa on their 2020 single “Fever,” and Angèle (a superstar in the Francophone pop universe) may finally be about to get her due stateside. Her 2021 LP “Nonante-Cinq” is irresistible, all floor-filling bangers and purring ballads with panache to spare. If anyone’s primed for a “who the hell is that” moment in the desert this year, it’s likely her. — August Brown
Doechii
TDE’s newest star-to-be will bring her fiery stage presence to the desert for the first time. Doechii put herself on the map in 2020 via a show-and-tell style introduction in “Yucky Blucky Fruitcake,” later reaffirming her talents on the antagonistic “Crazy” and “Persuasive.” Never one to mail in an opportunity to dominate, her vision will be on full display at Coachella. — Kenan Draughorne
Metro Boomin
(Illustration by Ross May; Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images for Coachella)
Metro Boomin
Coachella is famous for its surprise guests, and with the exception of Gorillaz, no act is likelier to bring out more high-profile pals than this 29-year-old hip-hop producer from Atlanta. As responsible as anyone for the dark, skittering sound of modern trap, Metro Boomin made his name cutting hits like Drake and Future’s “Jumpman” and the Hot 100-topping “Bad and Boujee” by Migos; “Creepin’,” his Mario Winans-sampling collab with the Weeknd and 21 Savage, has been hanging around the upper reaches of Spotify’s U.S. Top 50 for months. Might they bring it to life here? — Mikael Wood
APRIL 15 AND 22
The Breeders
Alt-rock fans with long memories were dismayed to see the Breeders’ name in tiny print on the Coachella poster. But the beloved Ohio band led by twin sisters Kim and Kelley Deal hasn’t released an LP since “All Nerve” in 2018; more to the point, many (or most?) of those heading out to Indio weren’t alive three decades ago when the Breeders dropped the classic “Last Splash.” Still, traces of the Deals’ deadpan vocals and fuzzed-out melodies are easily discernible in stuff by the higher-billed likes of Wet Leg and Remi Wolf. Perhaps young fans of those acts will find their way to these OGs. — M.W.
Ethel Cain.
(Illustration by Ross May / Los Angeles Times; Gus Stewart / Redferns via Getty Images)
Ethel Cain
Cain wrote one of last year’s defining rock singles, the Tom Petty-worthy barn-burner “American Teenager” that smuggled in some deep cynicism about the rural South that raised her. Her 2022 album, “Preacher’s Daughter,” is even more bleak and unnerving, with Flannery O’Connor-worthy vignettes of small-town doom and spiritual desperation. Fortunately, she’s got a stage presence to make it all riveting. — A.B.
Dinner Party
Individually, Terrace Martin, Robert Glasper, 9th Wonder and Kamasi Washington are some of the most respected instrumentalists and beatmakers around. When they teamed up in 2020 to create Dinner Party and release their debut project under the same title, the result was a jazzy fireball whose complexity rewarded repeat listens. Expect a heavy dose of improvisation when they’re on the clock at Coachella, and don’t be surprised if vocalists from “Dinner Party: Dessert” pop out to join the fray. — K.D.
Eric Prydz’s Holo
Athough the EDM boom of the 2010s may have leveled out for good, that leaves plenty of room for the devoted to hone their craft into stranger, more technologically ambitious terrain. Ebullient house DJ and producer Eric Prydz, long a favorite at dance music fests, finally built the audio-visual apparatus of his dreams with Holo, a 3-D mind-melter of a live production that promises to take the Tupac mirror trick and amp it up a thousandfold. — A.B.
APRIL 16 AND 23
IDK
2022 was the year of the dance floor, and IDK’s EP, titled “Simple,” was one of dance music’s strongest releases. Over Kaytranada’s wizard-like production across the EP, IDK’s presence is inimitable whether he’s rapping or singing. It’s a similar story across the Maryland artist’s catalog, whether it’s the ambitious concept album “Is He Real?” or his most recent full-length, “USEE4YOURSELF.” — K.D.
Felix of Paris Texas
(Illustration by Ross May / Los Angeles Times; Astrida Valigorsky / Getty Images)
Paris Texas
Glance at the Coachella poster and you may miss Paris Texas’ name on the second to last row, but show up to catch the band’s Sunday afternoon set. On the thudding rap-rock song “Bullseye,” vocalists Louie Pastel and Felix deliver a mosh-pit-inducing performance that should spur more than a few dust clouds in the desert. — K.D.
Jai Paul
Of all the left-field billings for 2023’s Coachella, this is the most stunning. The English singer-songwriter-producer with a velvety R&B voice and the cockeyed beatmaking of J. Dilla was touted as a potential superstar in the 2000s. Both Beyoncé and Drake sampled his single “BTSTU”; Ariana Grande and Donald Glover later tapped him to produce; and his single “Jasmine” prompted Prince comparisons. But after a batch of his demos leaked, he all but disappeared from public life. Remarkably, this Coachella gig will be his first-ever live performance, and absolutely no one knows what to expect. — A.B.
Sudan Archives
Sunday’s bill is stacked with ambitious Black female artists (Latto, Willow, Noname and Fousheé among them). But Sudan Archives puts on a show like none other, whipping her violin lines into bass-rattling R&B that veers from hypnotic loops to all-out punk mania. “Natural Brown Prom Queen” made good on her immense instrumental gifts, an album as fun to dance to as it is to get lost in. — A.B.
Kali Uchis
The recent success of her song “Telepatía” — which took off on TikTok before crossing over to Top 40 radio — means that L.A.-based Uchis will sing for a much bigger crowd this year than she did when she played Coachella in 2018. Yet one of the many delights of her sumptuous new album, “Red Moon in Venus,” is how unbothered Uchis sounds as her light, trilling voice floats over arrangements that blend dreamy Latin pop, plush retro soul and trippy psychedelic rock. Her chill has an almost cosmic quality. — M.W.