Will Smith unexpectedly appeared onstage at Coachella with Latin star J Balvin on Sunday night. The performance was themed around UFOs, and Smith was dressed full on “Men in Black,” channeling his iconic character’s signature sunglasses no less as they performed the title track of the 1997 sci-fi action film.
The Bad Boy actor’s appearance was not long, but Smith, who is no stranger to rocking a moment on stage, made a memorable performance, ending the set which concluded with Balvin dragged off stage by black-suit-clad dancers while Smith pulled out a “Neuralyzer,” which was the famous memory-eraser device from the film. Balvin actually returned for another song, for a version of his hit “In Da Ghetto” with his dancers, costumed in alien garb, with big green and black eyes.
Balvin, who likes big outlandish stages arose on what Variety described as “a platform from beneath the stage, underneath a giant mock-UFO that looked like a cross between the evil spaceship” from the Jordan Peele film “Nope.”
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This isn’t Balvin’s first Coachella performance. In 2019, his set memorably jumpstarted the huge presence of Latin music at the festival that year. That year was a big one for the music festival in the desert as it featured performances from at the time rising stars Bad Bunny and Rosalía. At the end of his set, Balvin, who is Colombian, professed how proud he was to see and hear so many artists performing in Spanish at the world’s biggest music festival. Nowadays, it is more so expected, and much of that credit goes to J Balvin and his peers, who continue to electrify Coachella every year.
