Creepy Nuts closed out the Gobi Stage on Friday night at Coachella 2026, headlining the final slot of the evening for the kick-off of their first-ever North American tour.
Playing to a packed tent, with many more watching via the festival’s global livestream, R-Shitei and DJ Matsunaga followed Dutch rapper Joost, who had just torn through a frantic set of hip-hop colliding with hardstyle and hyperpop, leaving the crowd buzzing.
Creepy Nuts opened with ‘Billiken’, the 2023 Jersey club cut that previewed the sound that would make them a double RIAA Gold-certified act. R-Shitei hit the ground running, locked in on rapid-fire bars while DJ Matsunaga, a 2019 DMC World Champion, scratched tight patterns across the beat. Late-night wanderers’ anthem ‘Yofukashi no Uta’ and ‘Daten’ followed, the first anime songs of the night, Matsunaga taking a scratch solo at the close of the first before the brisk jazz-rap of ‘Daten’ pushed things back up ahead of the first MC.
Photo by Hiroya Brian Nakano (@hiroyabrian)
“We are Creepy Nuts from Japan”, R-Shitei told the crowd. “No samurai, no ninja, no Karate Kid, no Mr. Miyagi, no Shohei Ohtani.” (timely, given Ohtani had broken Japan’s on-base streak record just hours earlier). It was the cue to ‘Japanese’, the ‘LEGION’ cut where R-Shitei runs through every tired Western image of Japan over a shamisen-threaded beat that sounds one step removed from ‘Forgot About Dre’.
The dark and confrontational ‘Chxxai’ had R-Shitei blaring down the mic before ‘Doppelgänger’ hit with its pounding four-to-the-floor beat, the two tracks back to back getting the energy exactly where it needed to be for a late-night Gobi Stage slot. “Coachella, my DJ, number one champion, DJ Matsunaga!”. Lasers cut across the tent as the crowd were met with a scratch routine of lightning cuts and beat juggling that left some visibly floored by Matsunaga’s world-class chops.
Photo by Hiroya Brian Nakano (@hiroyabrian)
‘Bling-Bang-Bang-Born’, a multi-award winner and one of the duo’s two RIAA-certified tracks, faced its first real trial in front of a major Western festival crowd. It’s a weird one on paper, a Jersey club tune with bed-squeak percussion tied to a Harry Potter parody anime. Despite being at the cusp of overplayed at its 2024 peak, the live music litmus test results were unanimous. Phones went up, bars got yelled back. Still good.
R-Shitei glanced down at three sheets of paper taped to the stage floor. “Cheat sheet”, he said, before abandoning it. “Is Japanese OK?”.
“My English, not good, but, my rapping is so good”. He took a beat. “DJ Matsunaga, no speak, no talk, but, his DJing is very fucking good!”.
‘Mirage’, the reggaeton and steel-pan-accented Call of the Night season two opener, brought the room down to a sway before ‘To Us Former Prodigies’ gave Matsunaga’s swing-jazz production its best showcase of the night with its double bass and sitar combination.
‘Otonoke’ closed the set, the DAN DA DAN opener that’s practically two tracks in one, its heavy beat making way for a floaty, high-spirited chorus that had arms in the air across the tent. The repeated “DAN DA DAN” refrain got the loudest crowd response of the night, as the livestream chat moved faster than R-Shitei’s rapping.
Photo by Hiroya Brian Nakano (@hiroyabrian)
The late headline slot is a double-edged deal. You get to call yourself a Coachella stage headliner, but you’re working with a crowd that have been on their feet for hours. For an act only just establishing themselves on the international circuit, it’s a real effort. Creepy Nuts had variety on their side, fun tracks, hard tracks, anime hits, and catalogue classics, getting their point across without the English language on their side.
As the only representatives of Japan’s hip-hop scene at the festival this year, they gave Coachella a 45-minute taste of a sound made across a decade by championship-level rapping and turntablism. There is genuinely nothing else quite like them.
Miss the Coachella set? Creepy Nuts head to New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom at Manhattan Center on April 13th, followed by Chicago on April 15th, before returning for Coachella Weekend 2 on April 17th, and wrapping the tour in Mexico City on April 19th.
Creepy Nuts NORTH AMERICA TOUR 2026 i This table contains affiliate links.
DateCountryCityVenue10th Apr (Fri)United StatesIndio, CA Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival13th Apr (Mon)United StatesNew York, NY Hammerstein Ballroom at Manhattan Center15th Apr (Wed)United StatesChicago, IL The Auditorium17th Apr (Fri)United StatesIndio, CA Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival19th Apr (Sun)MexicoMexico City Pabellón Oeste
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