"For me as a Brazilian, it's always been hard to get a visa," Alok told Reuters during an interview backstage at Coachella, in southern California.
"So, for us, it didn't change much. But, of course, for Europe and others, they changed the rules, right?"
He said he had heard about other Coachella performances being cancelled in 2025 due to visa issues and felt fortunate he made it to the festival when other international artists could not.
In the first week of April, British singer FKA Twiggs, who was scheduled to perform at Coachella, cancelled her performance.
She was bowing out due to "visa issues", she said on the social media platform Instagram.
She also cancelled her entire North American tour.
With the Trump administration rapidly cancelling the international student visas of pro-Palestinian activists as well as revoking the legal status for 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, international music artists have also found they are not immune.
In March, Alvin Gibbs, from British punk rock band UK Subs, said in a post on Facebook that they were allegedly denied entry into the US while travelling to their performance at LA Punk Invasion 2025.
Despite evolving visa policies looming, Alok did not fret about the future during his set. He moved his music to the next level.
While Alok traditionally uses LED projections to create rows of artificial background dancers for his music sets, he evolved his performance at Coachella with live performers dancing to his beats.
"It was very challenging," he said.
"I'm very used to doing a lot of crazy stuff in the shows, very integrating with new technology, but this one for sure was the most difficult.
"We're dealing with human technology and the synchronising. But it's also something beautiful because once we are connected in the same synergy, same purpose, we can do stuff that is extraordinary."
Alok has noted a desire to keep performance human instead of leaning too much on artificial intelligence.
"Art is made by soul," he said, adding his appreciation for his guest performer, US singer Ava Max.
Alok is best known for his 2016 single Hear Me Now and for his 2024 album The Future is Ancestral, which features nine dance tracks mixed with indigenous songs, some of which have been sung for centuries by Brazilian tribes.
