Two days before the premiere of the documentary
jeen-yush: A Kanye Trilogy
this Monday at the Sundance Festival, the film's protagonist, rapper Kanye West (today renamed Ye, Georgia, United States, 44 years old), raised his hand on his Instagram account: “I'm going to say this nicely for the last time.
I have to have final cut and approve this documentary before it premieres on Netflix.
Open up the cutting room immediately so I can be responsible for my own image.
Thanks in advance".
And a smiley emoji.
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How did Kanye West get here?
The media alarms awoke, what would the film reveal?
Why was he now claiming control over a film that had been in the making for more than 20 years with his permission, directed for a long time by his very close friend, Coodie Simmons?
“As far as I know, Kanye hasn't seen it yet,” revealed the director at Sundance, who abandoned his career as a comedian and on television to follow the then-only promise of
hip hop.
“His team has seen him and I think they showed him something, but I don't know.
We haven't talked about it," Simmons added.
Clarence 'Coodie' Simmons and Chike Ozah, directors of 'jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy'. Sundance Institute
Coodie asked for confidence and suggested that they see him together, "stop laughing and crying in each other's arms" discovering images of their first meeting in the late nineties and those first years of falling and getting back up, of constant rejections and closed doors. But so far he has not had a response from Kanye, who, after his virtual request, has gone to Paris fashion week to walk his new relationship with actress Julia Fox.
Inspired by the documentary
Hoop Dreams
(Steve James, 1994), which followed the careers of two young men as they tried to make it to the NBA, Coodie felt that Kanye would land far away in music and decided to stick with him, camera in hand, to “ See how far your dreams go. Jeen-yush (read
genius
, genius in English) is the result, plus 320 hours of recording over 20 years, especially intense since the rapper moved to New York in 2001 and until the release of his debut album
The College Dropout
(2003).
With long breaks: after the car accident, the death of his mother (Donda) and, above all, in the last decade, during his marriage to Kim Kardashian and his rise to the Olympus of fame more as a personal brand than as a singer, at which point Coodie was no longer in his inner circle (he wasn't even invited to the wedding with Kim).
Directors Chike Ozah and Clarence 'Coodie' Simmons and screenwriter J. Ivy, along with crew members, attend a Q&A moderated by Adam Montgomery after the virtual premiere of 'jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy' at the Sundance festival. Sundance Institute
The documentary is four and a half hours, divided into three independent films (to be released on Netflix from February 16). The first is the one that will be the most emotional for Kanye fans and also the most revealing for the general public. It focuses on the moment when he begins to make a name for himself as a producer, when his compositions end up in the mouth of Jay-Z turned into
Izzo (HOVA),
“the song that changed my life”, as West himself admits in the film. He tries to rise as a rapper, but nobody wants to give him the vote of confidence, either because they don't believe in his talent, or because they don't want to lose him as a creator of rhythms, as a producer. Kanye prefers to cling to the latter option and so he drags himself, almost literally, to the offices of Roc-A-Fella Records, the label of Dame Dash, Jay-Z and Biggs Burke to put his songs in the offices of media executives. hair. He walks out of there with his head down.
Back in Chicago, to regain his self-confidence, to polish his ego a bit, he goes to his mother's house, Donda, and it is those images that portray a real and even vulnerable Kanye West. She is the only person more important than himself, the only one he cares for and thanks for everything she did for him. And she, his biggest fan, paints him as "arrogant" with a heart and reminds him "that the giant does not see himself in the mirror", that you have to "keep your feet on the ground". "I think those scenes with Donda are the ones that are going to excite Kanye the most," Coodie said at the Festival. "It's the best time for Kanye to listen to her."
Coodie and his co-director and partner Chike tried to release the documentary as early as 2016, but respected Kanye's meltdown coinciding with
The Life of Pablo
album and tour .
"He told us he wasn't ready," he says.
But now the time had come, including images of his presidential campaign and at the Wyoming ranch, but little or almost nothing with Kim Kardashian, and generally leaving out all the controversies that the media have already covered extensively.
"This is the archetypal hero's journey," said Chike.
"It's a faith-based movie, directed by God," added Coodie, who in his faith hopes to stay connected with his old friend.
“We all have a genius inside of us, you just have to find it and bring it out.
That's what Kanye did."
