"I wasn't sure whether to bring any guests out tonight."
When you're watching an unannounced Justin Bieber run up and down a catwalk to shrieks of applause, and receive nothing but adulation during another artist's headline set at a music festival, you have to take note of how much the cultural landscape has evolved in such a short space of time.
This weekend, Ariana Grande will become the youngest artist to ever headline the festival. She's also only the fourth woman to do so. Comparisons to her fellow female headliners -- and to Beyoncé in particular -- will be inevitable.
But let's hope not.
Look, comparisons can be fun. They're cause for friendly debate, make for clickable blog posts and are easy fodder for online polls. But doing so minimizes the unique contributions of each of these strong women. They represent a trope that has proven as unkillable as some cheesy horror movie villain: that successful women are incapable of supporting and sharing a space with other successful women.
"Beyoncé is incredible and so is Ariana Grande," says Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo, a Philadelphia-based rapper best known as Sammus. "So I hope that folks will be smart enough to not buy into [comparisons]."
Even in this sisterhood-forward culture, there are still corners of society that have yet to get the memo that women don't like and don't want to be pit against each other.
Grande’s headline set wasn't a display of her peaking, so much as it was a showing of her current dominationNo one can do what Beyonce does but Ariana has undoubtedly carved her own lane too. She’s proven the ability to engage with a crowd that might not be entirely her own like a tour show. Even if pop’s not really your thing, you can’t deny that, in the past year alone, there’s been at least one Ariana Grande song you’ve bopped your head to on the radio, in the car or in the shower. It’s why she was, hands down, the perfect headliner to close each Coachella 2019 weekend. Joining Ariana on this year’s headline bill are Childish Gambino and Tame Impala. Both are always a treat and received rave reviews but their buzz was nothing like the anticipation that built for Ariana’s set on Sunday. In fact, you could argue that interest in Coachella’s line-ups had started to wane until Beyonce breathed new life into the brand. Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2019/04/15/beychella-arichella-ariana-grande-beyonce-prove-coachella-needs-strong-women-line-9217939/?ito=cbshare Twitter: https://twitter.com/MetroUK | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MetroUK/