10 Big Revelations From Part 1 of Kanye West's 'Jeen-Yuhs' Documentary

The first part of the 'jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy' documentary is on Netflix now. Here are the 10 biggest revelations about Kanye's career from the film.

Kanye West 'Jeen Yuhs' Netflix Documentary
Netflix

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Kanye West 'Jeen Yuhs' Netflix Documentary

Kanye West can be an open book when it comes to sharing his every thought on social media, but there are some aspects of his life that have been kept out of the public eye—until now. This week, the first film in the jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy series was released on Netflix. 

The documentary was brought to life thanks to filmmakers Coodie Simmons and Chike Ozah,  longtime friends and collaborators of Kanye. In the ’90s, Coodie was an aspiring comedian coming out of Chicago, who started a show called Channel Zero, where he spoke to big names in hip-hop. When he started hearing about a Chicago producer everyone wanted to work with, Coodie decided to pick up a camera and document Kanye’s journey to becoming a successful rapper.  

The first part of the documentary, titled Vision, takes us behind the scenes during Kanye’s early days as a producer and his desire to transition to a respected rapper. With cameos from figures like Mos Def, Jay-Z, Dame Dash, and his late mother Donda West, the film paints a picture of who Kanye was before the fame. And, to no surprise, some things never change. 


Here are ten of the biggest revelations that came to light from the first part of jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy. And you can read our interview with Coodie and Chike about the making of the documentary here.

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In the first part of the documentary, Coodie takes us back to a time before Kanye released his now classic debut album, College Dropout. Kanye is still in the process of working on the album when Coodie asks him to talk about what it means to him. “I feel like it’s a breath of fresh air,” Kanye tells the camera. “For all the people I’ve been around and all the experiences that I’ve been through, I’ve seen a lot more shit than a lot of people had seen by the time they actually get a chance to rap. I had to bring in those elements.” 

Kanye explains how his middle class background and his understanding of themes like education and religion are incorporated into his music: “My mother is an English teacher, and she used to cultivate me—instill a lot of shit in me that needs to be brought up. Even when I rap, my father is like a Christian marriage counselor. So he’ll bring up a lot of issues that Black people have today. I feel like I can’t sell to you that I’m finna come up and take ya life.” 

In these scenes, we get a firsthand look at how confident Kanye was from the very beginning. In a long-winded speech, he discusses how he doesn’t “give a fuck about the industry.” Explaining that he has an advantage over aspiring rappers who are struggling to make it, he points out his success as a producer gives him something to fall back on, so he can take risks that others wouldn’t: “What you need to understand is, when I do this album, it’s gonna be the realest shit you every heard, because if I fucking brick, I can still eat. I can still make a way for my family. So when I go on and o my album, I’m going to do it the way I fucking want to do it. And with the backing that I got… I’m not going to say that there’s no way that I can fail, but hopefully with God’s blessings—and I got the Roc on my side, and I got Chicago on my side—it shouldn’t be no way for me to lose, really.” 

Today, we all know Kanye’s 2004 hit song “All Falls Down,” which was nominated for a Grammy and is currently two-times platinum. But when Kanye first tried to get people to hear the record, no one really cared. One of the most illuminating scenes in the whole documentary shows Kanye rushing the Roc-A-Fella Records offices, in an attempt to get signed as a rapper. In the video, he goes around playing his song for various departments in the office. First, he plays it for the marketing department, then he plays it for an executive assistant. 

Though it seems he chose some of the wrong people to play it to at first, it’s still a little surprising in hindsight to see how no one was truly moved by what he was playing. A couple of people chuckled at some of Kanye’s bars, but it wasn’t convincing anyone that he should be taken seriously as a rapper, instead of just a beat producer. “Roc-A-fella just wouldn’t take him seriously as a rapper,” Coodie says in the documentary. “It’s like they only looked at him like a producer. Dame might’ve said he was going to sign him, but there was never a deal on the table. It felt like he just wanted to keep Kanye around to make beats for his artists.” Still, Kanye was very determined to prove them all wrong, which ended up being a mentality he carried for the rest of his career. This one scene explains a lot about how Kanye approached the rest of his career.

After finding success making beats for other artists like Jay-Z, Kanye’s main priority was to be taken seriously as a rapper himself. And to do that, he needed to get signed. His sights were set on being a member of the Roc-A-Fella team, but while he struggled to get on the roster, there were other record labels looking to make a deal with him. Capitol Records was one of the first labels to look his way, and in the doc, an A&R at Capitol states that he “tried to sign him,” but he couldn’t convince the higher-ups. Rawkus Records was another label that was interested, and at the time, they had Mos Def and Talib Kweli on their roster, who had a strong relationship with Kanye. It seemed like it would be a good fit, but ultimately the deal didn’t go through.

In October 2021, Kanye legally changed his name from Kanye West to Ye. “Ye” has always been a nickname for the rapper, but it turns out he always had the desire to get to a point in his career where he could drop the last name. There’s a point where he’s joking with his friends about a company using just his first name in promotional material. Because he was such a new artist at the time, he felt it was inappropriate for them to just use his first name. He wanted to be known as Kanye West. But then he flips the narrative, looking to the future of his career, and saying, “I’m trying to get to the point where I could drop the last name off my name.” He even jokes that one day people will just call him Ye.

We’ve seen Kanye involved in public beefs in recent years, but back in the day, he wasn’t as interested in bumping heads with anyone. One of his first disagreements was with fellow Chicago artist, Dug Infinite. During a trip to Chicago, Kanye was listening to the radio when he heard Dug Infinite diss him because of an interview he did with XXL magazine. Dug was one of the main figures who taught Kanye how to make beats, but the article didn’t include any mentions of Dug. “I just didn’t like some of the things he said. I felt like it was disrespectful,” Dug said on the radio at the time. Visibly hurt by Dug’s comments, Kanye met up with him to get clarity on the situation, and he explained that he did bring up his name in the interview, but XXL cut it out of the final story. Luckily, the two were able to reconcile pretty quickly. During an interview on WGCI Radio, Kanye commented on the suspected beef, saying, “Me and Dug is a lot closer than what y’all think. So if y’all looking at the record like, that’s just a record. I feel like I’m just breaking down the barriers for everybody.” 

One of the most endearing scenes in the first part of the documentary features Kanye’s late mother Donda West. She comes across as a very loving and gentle woman, who encouraged Kanye to follow his dreams from the very beginning. “She had a special way of lifting his spirit and giving him the love and guidance he needed,” Coodie says in the documentary. “It was easy to see that the confidence he had in himself was because of the confidence Donda had in him.” While Donda was Kanye’s biggest fan, she also bestowed some quality advice on her son as he continued to rise in status. 

“You’re down to earth and everything, but you’ve got a lot of confidence and it can come off a little arrogant, even though you’re humble and everything,” she said. “But it’d be important to remember that the giant looks in the mirror and sees nothing.” At first, Kanye looks a little confused or hurt, and he asks his mom if she thinks he’s arrogant. She replies “no,” explaining, “I think the way you handle yourself is really just perfect, but at the same time, you remember to stay on the ground and you can be all in the air at the same time.”

When Kanye was still trying to prove himself as a serious rapper, he put a huge focus on making an appearance on MTV’s segment You Hear It First. “We knew that that kind of publicity could get everybody talking,” he said. After many attempts—including making an in-person pitch to an MTV employee outside of a restaurant—we see Kanye finally make it to the MTV office for his first big-time television interview. During the interview, he talks about being an artist from Chicago, being a producer and a rapper, and more. “I’m going to use everything that everybody says that I can’t do, and I’m going to flip it to the positive,” he says. “I look at everything as a glass half-full thing. I’m going to stand for everything that I’ve seen in my life. And I’m going to try to express that to y’all the best way that I can. And I feel like I’m creative enough that I’m going to make it work.”

In recent years, Kanye has been open about his addiction to pornography, even telling Zane Lowe in 2019, “Playboy was my gateway into full-on pornography addiction. My dad had a Playboy left out at age five, and it’s affected almost every choice I made for the rest of my life from age five to now, having to kick the habit.” Long before this, though, Kanye briefly spoke about his addiction while being filmed for this documentary. Following his appearance on MTV’s You Hear It First, Kanye stops at a magazine stand in Times Square, where he asks for a copy of the now-defunct pornographic magazine Black Tail. “I got a little addiction, man,” he says with a nervous chuckle. “Y’all might have to cut this off.”

In 2001, Jay-Z released his classic album The Blueprint, and its first single was “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)” which was produced by none other than Kanye West. Kanye had earned some experience producing for other artists, but to be on Jay-Z’s Blueprint was a major look. Even then, Kanye was intrigued by Jay-Z’s recording process. Half-joking, he says, “All Jay does is basically four songs in five minutes and then he makes rappers come to the studio and play the songs, like, ‘Yeah, look what I did this week, 18 songs.’ He’ll play songs over and over, loud ear-piercing volumes.” During a studio session, Kanye recalled playing several different beats for Jay to pick from. He was about to pack it up before he played one more beat. And it just so happened to be “Izzo.”

“Jesus Walks” is an iconic song from The College Dropout, but some people may not know that Kanye originally wanted to have a feature on the record. When Kanye was still working on his album, he visited Scarface at the studio in hopes of getting him to lay a verse down on “Jesus Walks.” Though he seems impressed, he asks Kanye to play another track. After the listening session, it seems like Scarface is interested in recording something for the album, but it’s revealed that he never came back to the studio. Still, Kanye was very encouraged by the interaction, looking noticeably excited after Scarface left, pointing out that the veteran rapper enjoyed the music.

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