This paper examines how Kenyan musicians narrate and recalibrate their performance practices within China’s theme park industry. Based on ethnographic interviews with Nairobi-based musicians who have worked in Chimelong parks in Southern China, I analyze how “Africa” is curated as immersive spectacle and how performers strategically craft sound in response to those demands. In themed environments that organize the world into walkable cultural zones, difference must be rendered immediate and legible. Music plays a central role in this process, anchoring atmosphere and signaling place. For performers hired to represent “Africa,” this demand translates into an emphasis on sonic markers that circulate globally as recognizable signs of the continent. Certain instruments, rhythmic textures, and timbral qualities are valued less for regional specificity than for their capacity to communicate "Africanness" quickly within tightly managed performance economies shaped by short-term contracts and standardized show formats. My interlocutors describe amplifying these elements not because they transparently reflect local tradition, but because they operate as effective currencies within transnational circuits of work. I frame this dynamic as musical hustle: the strategic crafting of sonic legibility to convert recognition into livelihood. As such, this paper shows how the notion of cultural authenticity emerges as a negotiated and infrastructurally shaped category at the intersection of tourism, diplomacy, and entertainment capital. By foregrounding sound as a site of political-economic mediation, the paper contributes to discussions of circulation, performance, and the staging of cultural difference in contemporary China–Africa engagements.