KanYE THE maKIng
OF a TrOUblEd
gEnIUS
J
een-Yuhs (pronounced “genius”)
is not a modest title for a three-
part Netflix documentary about
the rapper Kanye West, but then
modesty has never exactly been
his style. Even before he released
his first track, nearly two decades ago,
he was confidently declaring himself
one of the greats. Since then, West,
44, has cut a swathe of chaos, drama
and ego through the public conscious-
ness that has made him one of the
most famous people alive.
There was the time he called George
Bush a racist on live TV; the time he
interrupted Taylor Swift while she was
accepting an award to say that it should
have gone to Beyoncé; the time Obama
called him a “jackass”; the time he wore
a MAGA cap and endorsed Donald
Trump; the time he launched his own
disorderly run at the presidency; his
marriage to and separation from reality
empress Kim Kardashian; a breakdown,
religious rebirth and a new relationship
with Julia Fox, 32, an actress.
In all this circus of celebrity, it’s easy
to lose sight of the man at the centre of
it — and the music he makes. Which is
where Jeen-Yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy comes
in. Coodie and Chike, the directors,
have had astonishing access to West for
roughly a quarter of a century, since
the earliest days of West’s career. This
extended portrait (with a full run time
of four and a half hours) succeeds in
putting his humanity and talent back at
the centre of the picture.
That’s in large part because Coodie
and Chike knew Kanye before the fame,Coodie for longest of all. In the late
Nineties, Coodie (real name Clarence
Simmons Jr) and West were part of the
Chicago hip-hop scene — West as an
up-and-coming producer, and CoodieMUSIC
as the co-founder of Channel Zero, a
public access music show. They met,
though, at a barber shop.
“He would come in, this 17, 18-year-
old kid, with these tracks. And I’m like,
‘Yo, this dude is talented.’ Next thing,
I see him at his house, and I see how
he loves the camera, how charismatic
he was,” Coodie says, in the same
warm tone he uses to narrate the film.
West seemed like the perfect subject
for a documentary in the style of Hoop
Dreams, the 1994 film following two
black teenagers trying to make it as
professional basketball players, and
Coodie knew that he should be the
one to make it.
The project was interrupted, though,
by the same ambition that made West
so compelling. While Chicago pro-
duced a lot of talent in the Nine-
ties, any hip-hop artist who
really wanted to make it had
to go to New York, where the
record labels were. Since West
had no intention of having a
low-key career, he relocated —
leaving Coodie behind.
It took a misfortune in
2001 to propel Coodie to
follow West and con-
tinue the project. “I
wound up being
carjacked, which
was like a bless-
ing in disguise,
because that was
the money I used
to move to New
York. They stoleSteely Dan
Seventies rockers Donald Fagen and
Walter Becker were surprised when
they received a handwritten letter
from Kanye West in 2007. He wanted
to sample Kid Charlemagne on his
song Champion, in homage to his
father, a Steely Dan fan.Le Corbusier
When West was writing his 2013
album Yeezus, he lived in Paris and
became fixated on Le Corbusier. He
went to an exhibition about the
architect at the Louvre five times.
“I’m a minimalist in a rapper’s body,”
he has said.Pablo Picasso
The painter’s family were flattered
that West named his 2016 album
The Life of Pablo but the precise link
between Picasso and West is
unclear. So much so that Leonard
Cohen wrote a poem about it, Kanye
West Is Not Picasso. He’s not the only
rapper to pay homage — Jay-Z has a
song called Picasso Baby.Susannah Butter
UNLIKELY INFLUENCES
Ruthless ambition, a religious rebirth and the Trump
connection — caught on film by the two men who have
been with him all the way. By Sarah Ditum
KIM AND
KANYE – WAR OF
WORDS
Portrait of
an artist
The trilogy looks
at Kanye West
beyond the circus
of celebrity.
Above left: Chike
and Coodie6 13 February 2022