This paper theorizes strategic cultural brokerage as a symbolic and structural affiliation that enables foreign artists, as a case of cultural producers, to gain recognition and enter new national markets. Using panel data on over 20,000 artists and 4,478 first-time cross-cultural collaborations across more than 100 national markets, I examine how symbolic distance, measured by differences in language and cultural values, shapes the magnitude and durability of performance gains. Leveraging staggered and two-stage difference-in-differences designs, I find that collaborations with locally legitimate artists increase local listenership on average, but the returns vary over time: collaborations across greater symbolic distance generate sharper immediate spikes in visibility, while culturally closer ones lead to more enduring growth. The findings specify when and how symbolic distance enhances or limits the value of global cultural partnerships and offer broader insight into how cultural producers navigate recognition and positioning in platform-mediated markets.