Coachella 2022 is a 6-day long musical festival taking place over two weekends in California. This year’s lineup has seen music company 88Rising bringing together a number of Asian artists from Japanese-American singer Utada Hikaru to K-pop star CL who broke the internet with her fellow 2NE1 members Dara, Bom and Minzy when they took the stage for a surprise reunion. Among the diverse set, two Chinese artists also graced the event for the first time.
For its second weekend, 88rising featured K-pop girl group Aespa in their first ever US performance at Coachella. The group consisting of four members Karina, Giselle, Winter and Ningning is only over a year old as they debuted in the thick of the pandemic on November 17, 2020. The 19-year-old Ningning whose full name is Ning Yizhuo (宁艺卓) is the youngest and the only Chinese member of the group. Aespa sang their songs “aenergy”, “Black Mamba”, “Savage”, “Next Level” and their unreleased track “Life’s Too Short”. #aespaLiveatCoachella trended number one on Twitter worldwide while #ningning trended as high as number 4.
Last weekend, Jackson Wang already made history as the first Chinese singer to perform at the Coachella main stage. The 28-year-old Hong Kong-born solo artist is a member of the K-pop group GOT7 and the newly-debuted Chinese band PANTHEPACK. Jackson who was shirtless by the end of a performance introduced himself saying, “This is a moment in history. This is magic man. This is Jackson Wang from China!..”
#JacksonWangCoachella shot up to number one on Twitter worldwide and similarly on Chinese social media. Apart from Jackson, Ningning has now become the second Chinese idol to perform at the American music festival. Aespa also trended on Chinese microblogging site Weibo following their performance.
It seems that Asian artists are certainly making huge strides this year. It can be remembered that Blackpink made history as the first k-pop girl group to perform at Coachella in 2019.
