What Kanye West’s Shanghai gig says about Chinese pop culture in 2025

For the first time since his Glow in the Dark tour back in 2008, music artist Kanye West (Ye) is returning to Shanghai for a concert on July 12. This latest announcement arrived the same week that he was banned from Australia for releasing an anti-Semitic track. Despite the controversy surrounding the artist, whose last China performance was in Haikou, Hainan, in September 2024, Chinese social media is buzzing with excitement at the prospect of the “Ye Live in Shanghai” gig. Within a week of the rapper unveiling the concert date, the hashtag “Now Kanye has really become a Shanghai Ye” (这下侃爷真成沪Ye了) had amassed over 17 million views. On the same platform, Ye-related content has reached 720 million posts and 264,000 discussions, engagement that dwarfs comparable hip-hop icons like Kendrick Lamar (130 million) and Travis Scott (210 million). Unlike Ye’s only confirmed European show, in Slovakia, which has caused online uproar, there appears to be a lack of acknowledgement in China of Ye’s hate speech. “People who love his music would still go,” Ian Yen, an employee at a popular Shanghai streetwear store, tells Jing Daily. “The last time he played a gig in Shanghai was ages ago ... but the tickets are more expensive compared to other countries.” For many Chinese fans, Ye’s return feels like a once-in-a-generation event. His 2024 “Vultures Listening Experience” show in Hainan sold 42,000 tickets within minutes of being released. It was a tourism win for the government, too. The event reportedly generated 373 million RMB ($52.9 million) in tourism revenue — 90% of the tickets sold went to people living outside Hainan province. The 72,000-capacity Shanghai Stadium concert is already being viewed online as a historic cultural moment. Still, that September “Vultures Listening Experience” did spark complaints on Chinese public forums over the artist’s lyrics and behavior, which were perceived as offensive. Is China opening up to foreign music artists? That Ye was allowed to perform suggests shifting attitudes: China, long known for its tight control over foreign performers, seems to be cautiously opening up to global pop acts. For example, after years of an unofficial “K-pop ban,” some Korean acts have taken to the stage there this year. Since 2016, China has maintained an unofficial ban on K-pop performances, a retaliatory measure prompted by South Korea’s deployment of the U.S.-backed THAAD missile defense system. This restriction was intended to halt the Korean Wave (Hallyu) cultural and stylistic trend in a lucrative overseas market. For nearly a decade, K-pop idols and Korean entertainers were excluded from Chinese stages and screens, and artists risked last-minute license revocations, making tours a logistical rollercoaster. Then May this year saw the K-pop boy band Epex hold a concert in Fuzhou, one of the first official standalone performances by a K-pop idol group in years. Indie act The Black Skirts and hip-hop trio Homies were also permitted to tour in China. These developments suggest Beijing may be selectively easing restrictions, signaling a potential reopening of China’s tightly controlled performance market to Korean artists. Along with this, Ye’s ability to secure licenses and clear bureaucratic hurdles may signal a broader loosening of cultural policy, or it may be a calculated exception due to how huge his fanbase is in China, and the expected tourism windfall. Stars must exercise political sensitivity Among other high-profile Western acts, Justin Bieber was banned from performing in China in 2017 due to his reputation as a “controversial young foreign singer,” following years of behavior deemed inappropriate by authorities. In 2014, the star came under intense attack for posting a photo taken at Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, a site viewed by China as a symbol of Japan’s unrepentant militarism. An apology did little to assuage critics. Stars linked to political movements that directly touch on sensitive aspects of Chinese culture face greater risks than those whose controversies are more global, or generalized. Lady Gaga remains banned from performing or distributing music in mainland China due to her 2016 meeting with the Dalai Lama, whom Beijing views as a separatist threat to its sovereignty over Tibet. American pop star Katy Perry was also reportedly denied a visa to perform in China in 2017 after she wore a sunflower dress while performing in Taipei in 2015 — the flower had been a symbol adopted by a protest movement challenging the Taiwan government’s economic policies seen as moving the self-governing island closer to mainland China, which claims sovereignty over what it calls the breakaway province. Perry is set to return to China in November this year, further pointing to a shift in cultural policy. In China’s cultural marketplace, Ye represents something Beijing increasingly values: an artist who can fill stadiums, generate tourism revenue, and boost the economy without challenging Communist Party authority. That’s a formula other Western acts will be watching closely.

What does Kanye West’s return mean for China?

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What does Kanye West’s return mean for China?