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there are many european and american superstars who have visited china, but only he can dominate the hot list! as the most controversial singer in europe and america, kanye west, with the huge success of his first performance, a hip-hop carnival brought by ye is still going on...

return to your roots

when the news that kanye west was going to perform in haikou came out two months ago, all kinds of rumors and memes began to fly all over the internet.

why not beijing, shanghai, guangzhou or shenzhen? but haikou? some people even made up a joke saying that kanye mistook the abbreviation of "haikou hk" for "hong kong hk".

the second is a "listening session", which is completely different from a concert. usually, a concert requires all the stage art design, including the performance of a live band, to create an audio-visual feast. a "listening session" can take various forms. previously, kanye west had a very abstract listening session for his new album "donda": he gathered more than 40,000 fans in a stadium in atlanta, covered his face, neither sang nor spoke, and just wandered back and forth in the stadium for 48 minutes.

this also made all the fans who attended kanye's "listening session" feel a lingering fear. fortunately, at the end of august, kanye held an album listening session in south korea. although he was one hour late, he sang 70 songs in a row and performed for two and a half hours, upgrading the listening session to a concert, showing his sincerity! this also put many fans who were worried that kanye would not do anything at the "listening session" at ease.

when everything is ready, only the east wind is missing, kanye appropriately updated his social media account with photos of himself going to school in nanjing as a child, and wrote: "i'm back." at this time, all the fans finally felt reassured, and then left messages in kanye's comment area: "return to your roots."

born into the middle class and of good family background

kanye west is a rap star. but he is also a megalomaniac billionaire, a fashion icon and a nonstop outrageous machine. now 47 years old, he is often classified as insane...

kanye was born in atlanta, usa, and showed amazing musical talent since he was a child. he started writing poems at the age of 5, started rapping in the third grade of elementary school, and created his first single at the age of 13. it is true that the black community has never lacked rap talents, such as the nwa group and the later popular lil wayne, but the biggest difference between them and kanye is that kanye comes from a middle-class american family.

kanye's father is a photojournalist, and his mother donna is a professor at the university of chicago. because of his mother's work, kanye had a magical experience in nanjing, china. when he was 10 years old, kanye went to nanjing confucius temple primary school for one year.

it was during this year that kanye learned a lot of chinese, climbed the great wall and huangshan mountain, and performed breakdance in the classroom for chinese teachers and classmates. interestingly, in 2008, when kanye returned to beijing for a concert, he publicly looked for his classmates, but embarrassingly, he didn't find anyone.

although the 10-year-old kanye only went to school in china for one year, he said that the experience had a profound impact on him. it gave kanye a perspective that other black rappers did not have. he realized the hypocrisy of western media propaganda, began to think independently, and challenged authority with a skeptical eye.

there are no street drug dealers and gang fights in his songs, no clichéd money and beauty, instead, there is an exploration of life, religion and the inner world. when other hip-hop singers are still trying to piece together their beats with simple samples, kanye has already added a lot of strings as background in his albums.

kanye west broke the inherent ceiling of black rap music with his musical talent. his album "my beautiful dark twisted fantasy" won four grammy awards and was crowned the "greatest" by countless demanding music critics.

controversy continues after fame

along with kanye west's huge success, he has become more and more controversial. in the united states, he has offended almost everyone: he once cosplayed as jesus himself on the cover of rolling stone magazine, which directly offended many religious groups.

while actively participating in the "black lives matter" movement as a black person, he also said that "400 years of black slavery in the united states was a choice", which was criticized by the national association for the advancement of colored people. he also publicly stated that he liked trump. not only did he go to the white house to meet the president, he also tweeted that this guy was "my brother", and then he lost 9 million fans in an instant.

after liking trump for a while, kanye decided to run for president himself, so he dragged musk to run for president in 2020. the campaign slogan was also very simple: "yes!" the main policy was: reward every woman who did not have an abortion with $1 million, and then open the nba from nigeria to nanchang, china.

then, he broke down at his own public campaign rally: he wore a "security guard" outfit, cried and shouted, "my dad wanted an abortion, my mom saved my life," "i almost killed my daughter," and other nonsense. then, he sent dozens of tweets in the middle of the night, suggesting that his wife kardashian had cheated on him... and then inexplicably announced his retirement from the internet.

in fact, kanye west has been hospitalized for mental problems since 2016. his ex-wife kardashian said he suffered from bipolar disorder, and the university of washington used him as a case study for teaching. at that time, kanye west was already showing signs of being "abnormal". at that time, his tour could earn millions of dollars every night, but he tweeted that he was now in debt of 53 million us dollars and hoped that facebook president zuckerberg could lend him 1 billion us dollars to help him through the difficulties. what was zuckerberg's reaction? of course, he ignored him.

as kanye west's remarks became more and more outrageous, kardashian chose to divorce him. as he fired at jews, adidas also sold off the yeezy brand worth $1 billion. nowadays, when the media mentions kanye west, it is more about his revealing wife... even european and american countries, which are always known for their standards, can't stand it and have repeatedly called for the kanye west couple to be banned from appearing in their cities.

kanye west's performance finally passed the review

kanye's "crazy" actions also made it difficult for him to pass the review in china. justin bieber, a former problem teenager, was rejected for "improper behavior". hip-hop music also has a lot of content suspected of insulting women and promoting violence, which has become a "performance restricted area".

however, kanye had already toured in beijing and shanghai in 2008, and his special feelings for china made this performance a "two-way trip". with the official ticket sales, 40,000 tickets were sold out in seconds, ranging from 680 yuan in the stands to 2,000 yuan in the inner field.

soon, the plane to haikou was filled with a high level of ye, almost all of them were boys wearing camouflage pants and big boots. they could tell at a glance that they were going to see the ye audition. the "hipsters" at haikou airport flocked to major hotels in haikou. the density of "hipsters" in haikou was so high on social media that even ordinary-looking audience members were mistaken for scalpers...

even a typhoon can’t stop the performance

just when the fans were so enthusiastic, they encountered an accident. the weather station predicted that a typhoon would pass through haikou, and the concert officials announced that the event would be postponed to september 15. on september 6, typhoon "makar" caused serious damage to haikou's transportation, electricity, communications and other infrastructure. the roof of the wuyuanhe stadium where kanye performed was overturned by the hurricane, leaving only the skeleton and the hanging cloth strips. many fans were disappointed. can this still be done?

the picture comes from the weibo account @google下下

fortunately, the relevant departments of haikou city have concentrated their financial and material resources to repair the venue. although the roof is still a skeleton, the audition will be held as scheduled. on the evening of september 15, the stadium with a capacity of more than 40,000 people was packed. after the opening, kanye, wearing a black sweater with red chinese characters "told you so" on it, slowly stepped into the center of the stage in the golden wheat field. the piano prelude sounded, and the fans couldn't help screaming, his hit single "runaway". kanye loudly said the chinese opening "i love u haikou" on the spot; kanye didn't expect the audience's chorus to be so shocking; fans didn't expect kanye's four children to come to the center of the stage... "perfect beyond expectations" describes the experience of this performance.

haikou becomes the big winner of the concert

according to statistics from the haikou municipal culture and tourism department, 96.5% of the audience for this "audio audition" came from outside the island. the cities with the most ticket buyers were shanghai, guangzhou, shenzhen, hangzhou, beijing and chengdu, with 42,000 spectators. the audition-haikou station achieved box office revenue of about 51 million yuan, of which 96.5% were from outside the island, driving haikou's tourism revenue of 373 million yuan.

corresponding to this is the chain economic reaction brought about by the audition. on the day of the performance on the 15th, the average occupancy rate of accommodation rooms in haikou city was 83.42%, a year-on-year increase of 41.82% and a month-on-month increase of 10.44%; the average occupancy rate of 23 key monitored hotels was 88.3%, and the occupancy rate of 53 tourist hotels reached more than 90%, driving the accommodation industry's turnover to more than 45 million yuan.

it was a listening session that ended up being a win-win for all three parties: kanye successfully held the show, fans got to meet their idol, and the host city benefited economically.

in fact, haikou city is also learning from singapore. in the first half of this year, singaporean prime minister lee hsien loong's government spent millions of dollars to invite taylor swift to hold an exclusive concert in asia, which directly brought singapore 260 million to 370 million us dollars in tourism revenue. lee hsien loong's "poisonous move" even triggered complaints from neighboring asian countries.

the whole city of haikou is "encountering" kanye west

finally, fans "accidentally" ran into kanye in various places, whether it was a fan who helped kanye place an order for mcdonald's and received 100 yuan in cash, or a music fan who was greeted "hello" in chinese while having breakfast in a hotel, but these are just some small tidbits.

image source: xiaohongshu user @小岛黄主

the most down-to-earth thing is that kanye took his four children to "miniso" for a big shopping spree. here, kanye bought a 12.9 yuan hairpin for his little girl and a "barbie set" for his eldest daughter... as a result, his children had spicy noodles in their right hands and yuanqi forest in their left hands. after buying lego toys, they drank ancient tea, completely turning into local kids. this made kardashian, who is always known for her exquisite wealth, unbearable. she posted a message overnight, calling on the children to go back to school and stop playing crazy with their father!

what about kanye? he is busy adding more shows in haikou: see you again in haikou on september 28, the carnival continues...