Donald Glover may be hanging up the Childish Gambino personality soon, but if the recent report from HITS Daily Double turns out to be true, Gambino will be going out with a bang as next year’s Coachella headliner alongside Justin Timberlake and Kanye West. The music industry trade publication is usually unable to reveal its sources, but has generally turned out to be very reliable as a source of impending or unconfirmed music news.
According to the report, Glover will close the show on Friday, with Timberlake on Saturday, and Kanye on Sunday. While none of them are strictly considered to be as big as Beyonce or Eminem, this year’s headliners, all three of the proposed artists have had huge cultural moments during 2018, from Gambino’s “This Is America” video debuting during his well-received appearance on Saturday Night Live, to Justin Timberlake’s meme-generating Super Bowl Halftime performance and dance-pop return Man Of The Woods. Kanye West, of course, had his own SNL performance go viral, albeit for different reasons, and has promised a follow-up album to the much-hyped Ye and its accompanying releases from the rest of his GOOD Music label artists.
And while some may view these headliners as a step back after 2018’s lineup pretty prominently featured women as headliners — most notably, Beyonce, who stole the show with her “Beychella” stage — there is still plenty of time to build out the lineup around two of three huge legacy acts with more younger acts and women as well.
