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- Jeen-Yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy
- Director: Clarence Coodie Simmons Jr
- Starring: Kanye West
- Available on Netflix SA
This gritty documentary traces the rags-to-riches tale of one of the greatest hip-hop artists to grace a mic or slide a dial behind a production desk. He has subsequently also become the richest black man in US history.
The erratic and eccentric Kanye West first appeared to his diehard fans much like a superhero acquiring his powers through a tragic accident, as when Bruce Banner was exposed to gamma radiation and morphed into The Hulk. West suffered a car accident that saw him break his jaw a few months after he realised his dream of signing to the legendary Roc-A-Fella Records.
He burst through the speakers rhyming through a wired jaw over a Chaka Khan sample – and that was it, for most of us.
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Since then, we have been transfixed by both his artistry and his antics.
This painstakingly compiled doccie was shot over 21 years and directed in a linear style that takes us back to a time when nobody thought Ye could do more than produce. Back then, he went from one record label to another playing his music for anyone who would listen, being stonewalled as though he had no clue what he was doing. We see him playing the seminal Jesus Walks for a few people who could not fathom what that track would become.
The film’s director, Clarence Coodie Simmons Jr, met West as a youngster. He soon found himself believing in the wannabe artist’s success – so much so that Simmons gave up his career to document Ye’s rise with a camera.
That astounding decision culminated in a full trajectory of the artist’s highs and lows. We are shown the famous chaining day moment when Jay-Z first invited him on to a stage.
Ye’s mother Donda West, for whom he named his last and upcoming albums, was naturally an integral part of his early career before she passed away.
If anything, this offering is a testament to speaking things into existence, clichéd as that might sound.
Simmons followed him around for years with a camera, into which he would basically talk his passions and desires into reality. Like him or not, his first six albums were all pretty much masterpieces.
We were a little put out that this doccie is only available via disappointment viewing (appointment viewing), as the second instalment of three only drops next week. However, it is well worth the wait for his fans, who will pick up small references from his life that are echoed in his music – the subtle and successful architecture of the great icon he is today.
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