Sound & Vision: Kanye West's "Graduation" by Takashi Murakami www.juxtapoz.com

August 23, 2019: Kanye West, Graduation (September 11, 2007)Cover artwork by Takashi MurakamiIt's amazing to think back to 2007 and what Kanye West meant to pop-culture and pop music, because so much has changed in just 12 years or so.
But by this time, and the time that is sky-rocketing fame would come together with Graduation, Kanye was a Grammy-winning producer and artist, fresh off a highly acclaimed, 2005's Late Registration and budding cultural and style icon.
And so Kanye enlisted another budding cultural icon who had already shook up the contemporary art world, Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, to brand and recreate the image of Kanye West as megastar.
Murakami at the time said of the cover, via a Wikipedia entry, "The cover is based on Kanye's theme of student life.
Kanye's music scrapes sentimentality and aggressiveness together like sandpaper, and he uses his grooves to unleash this tornado that spins with the zeitgeist of the times.