Earlier this year, a leaked image shared widely on Chinese social media stunned the country’s music fans. Were officials really about to approve a concert by the controversial American rapper Ye?

It seemed too surreal to be true. The last time Ye performed on the Chinese mainland was in 2008 — when he was still known as Kanye West and China was throwing its doors open to athletes, artists, and politicians from across the globe. More recently, however, worsening Sino-American relations and the pandemic have driven a wedge between American musicians and their Chinese fans. Ye’s often contentious public persona made him an unlikely candidate to signal a reset, the thinking went, as Chinese cultural officials tend to avoid approving shows by artists “with a record of wrongdoing” — a category Ye fits into comfortably.

What followed were enough twists and turns to fill a thriller. In late August, a government website confirmed Ye would perform on the southern island province of Hainan in early September. Fans rushed to buy tickets, but after a series of incidents — including Ye deleting the poster for the show from his social media page and a postponement due to the impact of Typhoon Yagi — skepticism was running high. It wasn’t until he took the stage at Hainan’s Wuyuan River Sports Stadium on Sept. 15 that his fans could finally exhale and enjoy the show.

Although it was technically just a listening party for his album series “Vultures,” the concert was a massive hit on Chinese social media. Standing in front of 42,000 rapt fans on the first night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, Ye didn’t disappoint, referencing the time he spent in China as a child and having a drone fly through the glow of the nearly full moon.

The surprises didn’t stop there. Almost immediately after the concert, Hainan’s provincial capital announced that Ye would hold additional “Vultures” performances on the island through late September.

From an economic perspective, Hainan’s embrace of Ye makes sense. At a press conference in late August, a local official predicted that the initial concert would attract a flood of visitors — and revenue — to the island. Early data bore that prediction out, with 95% of attendees at the first concert coming from other regions within China, providing a much-needed boost to the island’s hospitality and catering sectors. As for the box office, the show took in 51 million yuan ($7.3 million) in ticket sales — more than three times the haul of Ye’s previous performance in Seoul and a reflection of the strong demand for concerts by international artists in China.

These figures are good news for local officials eager to achieve stronger growth, especially at a time when the central government is ramping up efforts to stimulate the economy and spur consumption. In September, China urged risk-averse officials to “get things done.”

But the show’s success doesn’t mean all Chinese cities will or even should follow suit, explained Cao Nanxin, an associate partner at strategic advisory firm Albright Stonebridge Group — and a Ye fan who was in the crowd for the initial show. “Hainan has unique advantages in terms of tourism resources, as well as a mature hospitality and services infrastructure,” she said.

National policy is also in Hainan’s favor. In recent years, the Chinese government has sought to position the island as a showcase for China’s continued “reform and opening-up,” granting it greater flexibility in trade, visa, and taxation policies. In 2020, Beijing unveiled plans to transform Hainan into a “Free Trade Port” by 2025. Hosting a high-profile international concert could be seen as a test of Hainan’s ability to meet this ambitious goal, according to Cao.

“Hainan officials are very confident in the transformation of its service-based industry,” Cao said, noting that there would be more international concerts coming to the island.

Still, there are signs that the signal sent by Ye’s Hainan show is being felt more widely. Beijing, Shanghai, and major provincial capitals across China are all busy welcoming stars from abroad. The approvals process for international performances in China is notoriously lengthy and complex, and events have been derailed at the last minute by complaints related to an artist’s past stances or even their social media activity. But Ye’s show in Hainan seems to have set a precedent for local governments, giving them cover to reposition themselves as facilitators rather than gatekeepers. For officials eager to demonstrate a business-friendly environment, this is a low-hanging fruit that can address investors’ top concerns when dealing with China, namely, can openness and predictability be guaranteed?

Less clear is what Ye’s show means for Sino-American cultural exchange. The artist has more of a history with China than most; ahead of the concert, Ye shared a photo of himself as a primary school student in the eastern city of Nanjing, where he lived for a year while his mother taught at Nanjing University. In a curious twist of fate, one of his classmates from that time was Hua Dong, now the lead singer of one of China’s most internationally acclaimed post-punk bands, Re-TROS.

But it will take longer — and far more than Ye — to close the gap between American musicians and China, according to Cao. The long-term effects of the pandemic and the two countries’ tense relationship are still being felt. For big-name musicians with established fanbases like Ye and Taylor Swift — the subject of an unusually public push by advisors tied to the Shanghai government eager for the “walking GDP” promised by her Eras Tour — there’s a lot to like. But for newer acts that lost the chance to build their audiences in China over the past five years, the value proposition is less clear. “Even if they have a chance to perform in China, they might hesitate,” Cao said. “Do I have an audience base here?”

Still, Ye’s enthusiastic reception makes a strong case that China remains a worthwhile market. More shows won’t just be a win for fans, but more importantly, a sign of music’s continued power to build ties in an increasingly divided world.

(Header image: Ye gives a performance in Haikou, Hainan province, Sept. 15, 2024. VCG)