China’s state newspaper Global Times described «widespread disappointment» in Shanghai this weekend following a Kanye West concert.
China’s state propaganda newspaper Global Times described “widespread disappointment” in Shanghai this weekend following a concert by American rapper Kanye West, who has attempted to rehabilitate his career in the past six months by performing in China.
West thanked the Chinese government in particular after his performance but did not address any of the complaints from fans or regime-affiliated media.
West, one of the most successful mainstream music acts of the 2010s, has struggled in the past decade to attract positive attention in his home country after abruptly rebranding from alleged devout Christian to pornographer to Nazi. After months of near-universal condemnations, ruptured corporate branding agreements, lost representation, and concert venues increasingly refusing to host him, West released a single in May titled “Heil Hitler.”
West’s behavior has been received much more positively in communist China than in the United States, where he has emphasized his connections to the country, forged while living in Nanjing with his mother in 1987.
Saturday’s concert in Shanghai followed an uneventful appearance in Hainan province in September. The music publication Consequence of Sound noted in its coverage that West has only performed live in China and South Korea since 2023. West was booked to perform at a rap festival in Slovakia known as Rubicon in July, but the announcement of his appearance prompted so much outrage that the organizers canceled the event altogether.
Unlike West’s Hainan show, his late arrival, apparent lack of advertised high-end visual effects, and technical difficulties in this weekend’s appearance outraged fans, who had paid hundreds of dollars to attend the event.
