Tony Williams leads choir in a Jakarta tunnel ahead of Ye’s debut

Tony Williams arrived in the Indonesian capital as preparations continue for Ye Live in Jakarta on October 24.

Williams is a singer, songwriter and longtime collaborator of Ye, and also the GRAMMY-winning rapper’s cousin. He’s part of the Road to Ye Live programme, which builds toward the Globe Stage production at GBK Main Stadium.

On Sunday October 18, as part of the programme, Williams hosted a five-kilometre morning run at 5:30AM which started at Discovery Hotel in SCBD and was open to the public.

That evening, a performance took place in a pedestrian tunnel in the same area.

Titled Tunnel Vision: An Ode to Ye, it was produced and curated by Williams and featured a 35-member choir performing a 15-song medley. The arrangements combined elements of Ye’s catalogue with kendang, the traditional drum found across Indonesian music.

Read this next: Ye returns to China & flips off Adidas during ‘Vultures 2’ listening party

The performance streamed live on Instagram and TikTok and was the last pre-activation stop before Ye’s show in Jakarta on October 24. The full session has since been uploaded to YouTube; watch it below.

Karen Tjahja, Marketing & Communications Lead at Raw Vision Collective (organiser of Ye Live in Jakarta), said: “With Jakarta being the only announced Ye tour stop in Southeast Asia and Oceania, this is an important moment for Indonesia to demonstrate its readiness to host international live entertainment at scale.”

Read this next: Kanye West apologises, links antisemitism to 2002 brain injury

She added: “The demand we are seeing is coming not only from Indonesian fans, but from audiences across multiple international markets.”

Jakarta Governor Pramono Anung also commented on Ye’s debut in the city: “This is a very proud moment for Jakarta. With a major concert of this scale coming to Southeast Asia and Oceania and Jakarta being the only selected city in the region, it is also an opportunity for us to showcase Jakarta to the world.”

Amira Waworuntu is Mixmag Asia’s Managing Editor, follow her on Instagram.

Never miss a beat. Subscribe to our Scene Report newsletter or follow us on Instagram.