Kai West is an interdisciplinary music scholar and multi-instrumentalist with research interests in popular music, organology and music technology. Focused in particular on popular musical instrument cultures, he combines perspectives from musicology, ethnomusicology, cultural studies, feminist theory, and media studies with a DIY ethos of learning through playing/doing/making. He earned his Ph.D. in musicology from the University of Michigan with a dissertation titled "Signal Paths: Electric Guitar Culture in the Twenty-First Century," a sweeping examination of the instrument's ongoing cultural relevance through its networks of technology, performance and identity. He has also published on race in U.S. music, winning the musicology department's Louise Cuyler Prize for his article, "Buckra: Whiteness and Porgy and Bess," in the "Journal of the American Musicological Society." After completing his doctorate, he worked as a lecturer at U-M, teaching courses in popular music, musical instrument history and interdisciplinary collaboration.

A conservatory-trained musician, he holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in double bass performance from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the San Francisco Conservatory and the University of Michigan. As a bassist, he has worked with ensembles such as the London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic and Welsh National Opera; toured extensively with celebrated violinist Nigel Kennedy; and freelanced across California with the San Francisco Symphony and the symphonies of Modesto, Monterey and San Luis Obispo. He also creates and releases experimental ambient music using guitars, effect pedals, synthesizers and tape machines.