Okay, first of all I should just admit at this point that I'm a huge ass Kanye fan, in case you haven't noticed. I'm EXTREMELY juiced about seeing the Glow in the Dark tour in June, and boom boom that's that.

Secondly, I also have to say that when Kanye started showing a high interest in "Japanese" art I was a bit skeptical. Especially when it comes to hip-hop, we've seen how people have tokenized Asian culture (i.e. R. Kelly's "Thoia Thoing," that whole Bollywood sampling phase, Wu-Tang Clan, the list goes on) while at the same time Asian and Asian American people remain in the margins of hip-hop culture. So when Kanye started rocking Bape and Takashi Murakami stuff, I was like "Oh here we go again." But after some more speculation, I really have to give it up to Kanye because even if he's not into the culture, he does a pretty good job of exploring past the surface kung-fu chopstick stuff. From the "Stronger" video that's influenced by Akira to his focused tour in Hong Kong, it's good to see that someone's slowly shifting the focus somewhere outside of hip-hop's bubble.

Thirdly, I would argue that beyond just clothes and pop culture stuff, he's extended a reasonable amount of effort towards putting Asian and Asian American artists on, instead of just taking the culture and running with it. When he was still underground in Chicago, he offered my friends, the Filipino American crew the Pacifics a beat (for much less than a million dollars). When Jin dropped his first album the dopest track on it was produced by Kanye, he's constantly giving props to Murakami, and now he's doing stuff with Teriyaki Boyz.

Anyway, I never like to sound like I'm hella jocking (even people I jock like Kanye) just in case something ever happens and we end up having rap beef or something, but I think it's important to note when people are going about it in a positive way, because lord knows I'm the first to go off if I feel like my culture's being exploited.

Agree or disagree? In the meantime, enjoy that video above for my favorite song from Graduation, "Flashing Lights" where he uses a bunch of Wong Kar Wai clips. Holla!