mvm.

It speaks volumes about a documentary when streaming moguls Netflix spare no expense for its involvement. With a ballpark figure of $30million floating around in the music ether, it came with speculative reasoning as to why you would pay for something – despite the uncertainty of viewership numbers.

“From tragedy to triumph.”//

But once you take yourself through the three-part journey that is jeen-yuhs, you begin to understand why. Whatever you think of him, I have been fascinated with Kanye’s controversial points of view, his immeasurable ego and widely-hailed array of musicality – and so I just had to give this a watch..

I grew familiar more so with Kanye’s story with a dissected lyric-by-lyric podcast I listened to about his Yeezus album. I leaned in closer to his work via his collaborative work with Kid Cudi on 2018’s KIDS SEE GHOSTS which I loved. The roof blew off when I found out that “Through The Wire” – debatably his defining moment in ’03 – was simply Kanye rapping about cheating death from a fatal car crash which resulted in his jaw being wired shut.

That moment on, I’ve become a bit advocate of Ye ever since. Not just through his musical prowess in creating hit after hit, but also through his mentality and his confidence – a side to Kanye that has always been prevalent since his mother first instilled in him at a tender age.

_____//_____

Aptly taken from Kanye’s deplorable nature in his line of Yeezys and the documentary’s centred around the “genius” morality of Kanye himself, jeen-yuhs is an immense three-part docu-series about the comeuppance of one of the most critically lauded artist in the 20th Century, Kanye West.

Directed from both lifelong friends of Coodie and Chike over a length of over 10 years from private home videos and never-seen-before VCR footage, it entwines and delves into a highly fascinating insight into the artists’ successful career from “Jesus Walks” in 2004 to his redemption album, “Jesus Is King” 14 years later.

From his delectable relationship with his late mother, Donda to the making-of breakthrough debut, The College Dropout to the awakening of a now-turned global star, the trilogy bares all to deliver a deeply understanding story of the kid from Chicago.

It entwines a love-hate relationship with director and childhood friend Coodie and Kanye himself, as it perfects the story of how much people change over time – with an unrelenting level of fame and success that Kanye himself undertook. It stylistically tells the development of a commendable producer merely making beats for others to the grandiose rap icon we see before us, identifying himself as nothing but a mere “God.”

The higher up you go, the further away you get from everybody else. That testament has never been more true when describing someone such as Kanye. But this documentary is more than an ego-centric drive to how great Kanye has become, it’s a documentary that has more than that. It has the fight, the struggle and the mentality when it comes to the music industry, the media, mental health and life as a whole.

….And what is documented is nothing but truth about it all. Truth which is a bitter pill to swallow for all. Truth that seemingly only Kanye has the strength to say.