The Vision
A screen shot from the film of Ye and his mother, Donda, sitting on the front porch of Ye’s childhood home.
By Anwuli Onwaeze
“jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy” shows us the raw beginnings of a superstar.
I‘m sure we’re all familiar with Ye, widely known as Kanye West. If you’ve been on social media for the past week you’ve probably seen him coming after Pete “Skete” Davidson or begging for Kim Kardashian to take him back. Amidst all of this online frenzy, on February 10th, the 1st chapter of the Netflix documentary, “jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy”, made a one night appearance in theaters. That Thursday night I was able to get a refreshing taste of the often yearned for ‘Old Kanye’.
All together, there are 7.5 hours of raw footage that have been gathered for this 3 part documentary. I’ll be covering the first act “VISION” which was released for one night in theaters and released on Netflix today, February 16th.
Jeen- yuhs gives us a raw, unfiltered look into Kanye’s rise to fame. His long time friend Coodie Simmons who shot and narrated the film came up with this idea for the documentary in the late 90’s. While Coodie was working in the Chicago comedy and TV scene, during his TV interviews he kept hearing one name: Kanye West. After meeting West and hearing his work, Simmons believed in his talent so much that he dropped everything to document what he believed would be Kanye’s journey to greatness.
This part of the documentary mostly shows footage from 2002, where Kanye is living in Newark, NJ, he had just finished producing Jay-Z’s now classic album, The Blueprint, but he was still begging Roc-A-Fella Records to sign him. The first single he really tried to push is now one of his biggest hits: All falls Down. It’s truly mind boggling to see Kanye pressing play on that track only for him to be escorted out of the building. Throughout the film he goes to established names like Jay-Z, Talib Kweli, and Mos Def to try, but mostly fail in convincing their labels to sign him. I think these moments are what really capture the essence of this first part of the documentary and Kanye’s first moves in the industry. He always had the work, he just needed someone to believe in this idea, in his sound. He needed people to trust in his vision.
Most of the popular hip hop artists at the time grew up on the east or west coast. Ye, a born and raised Chicagoan, had a newer sound which couldn’t be contained by these coastal borders. He wasn’t rough enough or laid back enough, but it never phased him. His talent did not reside within a place already existing, he had to make space for himself in the industry which so badly wanted him to stay behind the scenes.
We see this frustration come out when he visits his mother Donda West in his childhood home. We get to see the loving dynamic between the mother and son as she listens to his frustrations and reassures him in his confidence. It’s clear she planted the seed of self assurance in him as a child and helped him maintain it as he got older.
Kanye completely blows up the idea of a humble beginning. He never talked down on himself, dimmed his light, or let others dictate his path. And it worked! Why be humble when you know how talented you are?
See how far your dreams take you.