Jessie J’s China return highlights lucrative market for Western pop stars

One week after announcing she was "cancer free", Jessie J travelled thousands of miles to perform for an audience of more than a billion people on Singer, a hugely popular Chinese singing competition. On 29 May she delivered a stage-rattling rendition of Frank Sinatra’s My Way and sang her new song California, briefly adapting the lyrics to Changsha, the city hosting the show.

Posting on Weibo, where she has 821,600 followers, she called the visit "nostalgic" and said she felt celebrated in China. Her pivot to the Chinese market began in 2018 when she won that year’s series of Singer, a programme that can garner more than 20bn views for a single episode.

At the same time, tighter action on illegal streaming bolstered copyright protections and earning potential, helping the Chinese recorded music market rise from seventh to fourth globally and overtake Germany. International acts now face a tougher environment after the pandemic raised the bar for the domestic industry.

China, Changsha

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