INDIO, Calif. _ So much for the "white people stage."
That's how Vince Staples, the deeply skeptical Long Beach rapper, referred to the main stage of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival as he found himself performing _ with one eyebrow cocked in surprise _ on just that platform Friday night.
And he was hardly being unfair: Since its founding in 1999, the annual multi-day event in Indio, which is widely regarded as the country's most prestigious music festival, has generally privileged rock and dance-music acts such as Radiohead, Paul McCartney and Calvin Harris; in turn, the show has developed a loyal audience known, if somewhat less accurately, as a congregation of rich white kids.
