The genius of Jeen-Yuhs, Netflix’s three part documentary from Coodie Simmons and Chike Ozah about the life and work of Kanye West, is that it’s so textured in its intimacy that West becomes human.
The defining musician of his age and a self-proclaimed God, in recent years, his very existence has become a blur of indulgent maximalism capturing the paradoxical intersection of faith, materialism, wealth and fame. West has not so much as walked along the edge of the abyss as hurled himself face first into the great below. Jeen-Yuhs captures him in the days before he was a pop culture icon, before the manic Instagram outbursts, before he stopped being seen, talked and wrote about as a very real human being, enabled by relentless record executives, nodding dog associates and a profiteering media. Jeen-Yuhs gives us Kanye, Ye and Mr West all in one.
“Chi town raised me crazy” Kanye West raps on “Two Words”, his virtuoso collaboration with Mos Def and Freeway from The College Dropout and it’s when he goes back home to the Windy City midway through the first part of Jeen-Yuhs that we first get a glimpse of the angsty, maniacal West that has become a depressing staple of tabloid headlines in recent years. Called out in a relatively benign way on radio by Dug Infinite, a notable Chicago producer who was an early mentor to a teenage West, the future rap superstar can’t let the matter lie even after the beef is settled and put down to something genuinely outside the control of both men. After shaking hands and coming to peace, West rushes to a local hip hop station and rants egotistically and incoherently in a way that would increasingly become the norm whenever a negative comment was fired at him.
Above all else, if there is one thing to be learnt from Jeen-Yuhs, it’s that love is more powerful than anybody can imagine. A young West has little when he wants a lot. But he has the unconditional love of his mother, the late Donda West. Her spirit is electric, her energy empowering, she is everything a child needs in a parental figure. The documentary brings her back to life and West back down to Earth. There’s no mask when he’s around his mother, he’s just Kanye – sweet, dorky and crazily creative. The moment in Donda’s small apartment where they rap one of his early songs together stands as a transcendental portrayal of infinite love and the power we can instill in each other. Her tragic death in 2007 continues to haunt West – “if I die tonight, will I see her in the afterlife” he rapped on “Jesus Lord” – and it’s hard not to trace his descent into solipsism to this awful event.
Being surrounded by some of the finest rap artists of any era (Mos Def, Scarface, Talib Kwali) only exaggerates a young Kanye’s earnest nerdiness. With the bright eyed enthusiasm of a fan, a desperation to impress heroes and retainer in mouth, it’s the most relatable the precocious superstar has ever been. When trying to convince Rock-A-Fella of his rap might, he enlisted Scarface to provide a guest verse for an early version of “Family Business”. As West takes out his retainer to rap his verse, the legendary Texas rapper gives him a look that is part- bemusement part-disgust – “That shit been all in your mouth?” he says and it’s a reminder of the human being that was there beneath the celebrity.
Much of Kanye’s attitudes towards the music business and the people inside it can be followed all the way back to his early steps into the industry. While roundly embraced as a producer, there wasn’t a label in town that thought of him as a legitimate MC – even the one that signed him. Barging into the Roc-A-Fella offices to play future hits like “All Falls Down”, West was greeted with nonchalance by executives, secretaries and various label personnel (including future Roc Nation head Chaka Pilgrim) appearing at best disinterested, more annoyed that he was disrupting their work day. Jay-Z had a similar experience trying to break through, as Roc-A-Fella was born out of no label willing to take a chance on him. Indeed, in the documentary, the only two “music people” who seem to have any faith in Kanye the rapper are Mos Def and Rawkus Records A&R Ali Richmond.
Through the feuds with Taylor Swift, the endorsement of Donald Trump and a marriage to a reality TV star, much is often made about wanting the “old Kanye” back but watching Jeen-Yuhs, the man never changed much but his environment did, eroding away the innocence and kindness that was instilled in him as a young man. Power, money and fame swirled together make a poisonous potion and adding in mental illness (one that he seems to refuse to take medication for) and you get an extreme version of the young man seen in the first two episodes of Jeen-Yuhs. He took the world as his, only when he had it all, he self-destructed. He has always said whatever pops into his head (“George Bush doesn’t care about Black people”), possessed a confidence bordering on delusion and a self-immolating streak but now, at the height of his infamy, at a time of the immediacy of social media, there’s no place to hide, no soft place to fall, just the glare of the world.
It can be hard to see the resemblance of the man in the first two parts of Jeen-Yuhs and the one that now takes to the stage with accused rapist Marilyn Manson (whenever his mum pops up on screen it’s hard not to wonder what she would make of 2022 Kanye). West was always a man with a righteous conviction of biblical proportions but his dark twisted fantasy has turned into a nightmare. He’s surely watched the film by now and been offered a glimpse into the past but what he takes from it is anybody’s guess.
