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Kanye West Research Paper

1730 Words7 Pages

Arshdeep Singh
Jennifer Huerta
MCWP 50 022
Research Proposal Final Draft
16 February 2017

Japanese-American Studies: Eastern Asia meets Mr. West
Working Claim: Although it may hold true to say that a lot of Kanye’s music is aimed towards African American culture, he has also created plenty of unique music which can be viewed from a Japanese American cultural perspective and can be aimed towards it.
Kanye West has impacted the Japanese American culture through his unique music, specifically through the music videos from his album Graduation. Songs from his album such as Flashing Lights, Good Morning, and The Good Life have influenced the way Japanese American musical culture is being shaped. Kanye West is a famous American rapper, songwriter, …show more content…

Cultural studies and Musical studies have very rare relations with each other but for my paper, they relate to each other in many ways. I am going to use them to demonstrate the Japanese musical culture in the United States. Using the authors from my sources as credible voices for my cultural studies, I will use their research to help show my readers the similarities Japanese pop culture has had with the pop culture in the United States. Not only that but the Musical studies aspect of this will be portrayed by the musical albums of Kanye, more specifically the Graduation album released in 2007. The terms that would be appropriate for me to use in my research paper would be Techno-Orientalism and Afrofuturism. The term Techno-Orientalism is considered the study of the portrayals of Asians in science fiction and has promoted an array of stereotypes and deformations about the Japanese culture. The term Afrofuturism refers to a movement in literature, music or art which incorporates some elements of black history and culture. This paper will have a lot of parts relating to Afrofuturism as well since we are using the music element of the African American culture to relate this paper to the Japanese American …show more content…

The Cultural Impact of Kanye West. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Print.
Christian, Elizabeth Barfoot. "Kanye West: A Critical Analysis of Mass Media's Representation of a Cultural Lcfaon's Rhetoric and Celebrity." Rock Brands: Selling Sound in a Media Saturated Culture. Lanham: Lexington, 2010. 195-209. Print.
McLeod, Ken. "Afro-Samurai: Techno-Orientalism and Contemporary Hip Hop | Popular Music." Cambridge Core. N.p., 16 May 2013. Web. 03 Feb. 2017.
Melnyk, Andrew Donald. "Beats from the East: Transcultural Adaptation of Hip-Hop from North America to Eastern Asia." MUSeJournals. MacEwan University Student EJournal, 2014. Web. 11 Feb. 2017.
Mike Mullen, and January 25 by Michael Nordine. "Kanye's Right: He Is More Influential than Any Other Human Being." City Pages. N.p., 14 Apr. 2014. Web. 27 Jan. 2017.
West, Kanye. “Diamonds From Sierra Leone Remix Ft. Jay-Z.” Late Registration. Sony Music Studios,

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