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Michael Silverii

English 1201

Professor Slanker

7 September 2019

Kanye West

Kanye West is my idol and the biggest inspiration in my life. He inspired me to get

interested in music, fashion, and design as a whole. He once said, “If you’re a Kanye West fan,

you’re not a fan of me. You’re a fan of yourself. This statement has really embedded itself within

my spirit, and I have become a big believer in myself. Other than my parents, he has probably

shaped who I am more than anyone else. In a way, his art saved my life. I know the profound

effect he has had on me, but I want to rewind to the beginning of his career and go on a journey,

finding out how he has influenced our society. He has most definitely influenced the music and

fashion worlds, but I would like to see what other areas Kanye has influenced as well. Recently,

Kanye has been under some fire for some of the comments he has made and tweets sent out over

the course of 2018. I, of course was upset as to how he was being portrayed, and because it

seemed like he was losing fans and respect. However, after Kanye visited Dayton and held his

“Sunday Service”, I felt that he was receiving the love that he deserved. His “Sunday Service”

was held the morning of the Gem City Shine event, at Riverscape, in an effort to promote healing

and positivity after the Oregon District tragedy. Our city welcomed him with open arms and I

feel like he really embraced Dayton and our need for some love after everything our city has

gone through this summer. Seeing him in Dayton was a life-changing experience for me.
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Certainly this is a topic that I am passionate about. And of course I have listened to all of

Kanye’s music, and purchased many of his clothes and shoes and watched countless live

performances and interviews. But I haven’t really gone back and studied him deeply. It could

just be because of how strong his influence is to me, but I feel as though he is the most

influential artist of our generation. I believe that one thing at makes Kanye’s influence and power

so great is that he has the ability to not be influenced. He is truly a trendsetter. I think that he is

greatly misunderstood, and that he is just trying to use his ideas to push humanity forward. He

has a great amount of energy that he does not hold back. He puts this energy into creating things,

regardless of what people say, and how difficult it is. At the start of his career, people said Kanye

could not be a rapper, and that he should stick to being a producer. But look at where he ended

up. There are many examples of West overcoming obstacles and doubt to becoming successful in

different realms throughout his career. As someone who listens to hip-hop music often, I feel the

influence Kanye West has on the genre, because of the attention he commands, and how the next

wave of popular rap music usually takes an influence from something Kanye has already done. I

feel his influence on the fashion industry because of the amount of knock-offs of his shoes, and

how YEEZY shoe sales have experienced rapid growth over the past few years.

While I have my own perceptions of Kanye’s influence, I would like to learn more about

it from a less biased, more academic standpoint. I would like to dig deeper into his design and

thought process to learn why he does what he does, and what makes his influence so strong. I

also want to find out other references to Kanye and how he has influenced other areas of pop

culture. I want to explore his mind, throughout every single piece of art he has created.
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