Netflix just dropped part one of a trilogy of documentaries about Kanye West, shedding new light on the iconiclastic musician and fashion entrpereneur like nothing has before.
The documentary is revalatory, spotlighting a man who no one will believe in that due to his own self confidence and legitimate genius wills himself into becoming the biggest musician of the century so far. It’s a treasure trove of footage from the past 21 yers, including his career in music and fashion, as well as his unsuccessful 2020 presidential campaign, and the death of his mother Donda West.
It’s called jeen-yuhs (read: genius), and it’s brought to us by Clarence “Coodie” Simmons and Chike Onzah. Netflix reportedly acquired the documentary for $30 million.
Esquire Middle East caught up with Coodie and Chike just as the documentary was set to release. Read and watch our full conversation below:
So you both stepped away from Kanye after his mother Donda passed away in 2007. Why didn’t you make the film then? What kept you holding on for more?
Coodie: We always say everything happens in God’s time. In 2006, right before his mother made a transition, we were going to do the documentary, but K wasn’t ready for the world to see that. He was becoming this huge superstar and he wanted that have his fans see in that light.
Then, in 2014, Common brought us back together with the Aahh! Fest, Kanye was the headliner. He actually flew me and Chike out after that to Calabasas. We don’t go into that in the documentary, because we’ve got to keep the story moving forward. But he flew us out there and he said to both of us that he wanted us to be his voice because he gets misunderstood a lot.
We were not speakers, we do things visually. We put together Jeen-Yuhs then, and took it to networks at the time, but his team had other plans for him. At the time, it felt like he was calling out for help.
At the same time, it just so happened at the Saint Pablo tour, when he walked off that stage, I got the same feeling that I got when I heard he had the car accident before “Through the Wire,” It was the same feeling I got as when he walked off that stage and I didn’t even know why.
A lot of times when he would go off in the past I’m thinking like ‘oh, that’s part of the show, that’s what they’re doing, he’s got something coming out’. I didn’t know! But this time I felt something, and then I found out that he went to the hospital. I was like, hold on. I did everything in my power to get in touch with him. I didn’t get why no one would let me get to him.
I know we got separated for so long, and I knew we weren’t on the best terms day to day after we reconnected through Common, but God was like, I’ve got you. Kanye called someone who was with him day to day, and when he got better, it just so happened that I was in LA and I invited that same person to go to the BET Awards with me because Chike couldn’t come, so I told him to call Kanye to come with us. He called him, and Kanye said, ‘no, I don’t want to be in the public eye’ and said to meet us afterwards.
When we met him, this incident happened with TMZ. They said it was the first time they’d seen him happy and it was a whole big deal. After that, he had me come to Calabasas, and we had a great conversation. I was telling him about everything I was learning with meditation and Deepak and Oprah and living in the now, and people were coming up to Kanye and saying ‘Kanye, I need you to do this!’ and pull him away.
When he invited me to China, I told myself, ‘I have to be in disguise’. I went and bought a camera, because even though I went out there to be with him again, I bought the camera, and was with him and started filming even though I thought we were done with the documentary. I thought after all those years I didn’t know him. I knew him like y’all knew him, as Yeezy. But when we were in China together, I realized he was the same person to the point where I forgot he was a huge megastar, to the point where when we left the store and there were 100 people with cameras and I thought, ‘oh, right, this is Yeezy!’ But he was the same person that he was on 95th on the Southside with cornrows.
Obviously you have this responsibility to Kanye, and he trusted you. But you’re also your own filmmakers. What was the push and pull? When did you have to put your foot down and say, no, this is our movie, not yours?
Coodie: It was never a disagreement. When I went to meet with him, he called me and asked for my blessing to use some footage of his mom when he was working on his album [Donda]. I said sure, but I want to show you what we’re working on. I went to him with the sizzle.
Previously, I had said I’m going to go make this movie. We raised the money, got the people together, and started making the movie. And it just so happened that the day before we’d done a rough cut of the sizzle the day before he called me. I flew to Dominican Republic with the rough cut to show him to get his blessing too, and it was a great exchange.
When Kanye put out that tweet of course we were shocked and a bit disappointed, but this movie wouldn’t be so anticipated if it weren’t for Kanye doing the things that Kanye does. You know what I mean? When I saw it, that little bit of worry went away when I said, ‘trust God, period.’
I’ve tried to articulate to friends over the years what makes Kanye different, and to me it’s that you in the audience always feel connected to his soul. You see the ugliest parts and the most beautiful parts.
Coodie: Yep, exactly it.
Do you feel like that soul has changed over the years? Do you feel like there is an old Kanye to miss?
Coodie: Words are powerful. And I think when he said, ‘I told God, I’ll be back in a second, man, it’s so hard not to act reckless’ when it was God that that actually catapulted his career, you lose a little bit, but you never lose your soul.
There was a time when I wasn’t around but what I saw felt a little funny to me, but when I got with him, I saw that same soul.
How much did you leave on the cutting room floor? I mean, obviously you have to tell this narrative, right? What were the hardest moments to take out?
Chike: It wasn’t as daunting as it would have been years before. Like if we embarked on this at the time we were supposed to do it, it would have been harder. Everything happens for a reason. Since then, we became students of film even more, we’ve been reading a lot about screenplay writing, writing our own screenplay, so our education when it comes to stories evolved over the past couple of years. We took that knowledge into this, and it really helped us because now that footage didn’t seem so daunting, and it was easy for us once we identified what our protagonist’s journey was and what their overarching desires were going to be it helped us navigate this footage, because anything that didn’t align with that we knew we had to cut it no matter how much we loved it.
Coodie: Everything we did up to this point was a rehearsal, from Through The Wire, everyone we worked with taught us story, how to kill our darlings, and everyone else who said, go get these books, if you want to go on to do movies,
I’m going to put all y’all together for all these other projects, I’m going to get to know each other, we’re going to have great chemistry, going to bring everything together that I had on my mind since 2000. Now we know we can show people to unlock their genius, and move in faith, and everyone can move to their destination.
Chike: And it took all that to make this project. It took everybody working in their genius it took all those hands to guide us to get to this point with this team. That’s not remised on us. We’re in front of you as the directors, but there’s a whole lot of hands in this, and a lot of people that allowed us to tell their story the way we wanted to tell it.
Has Kanye seen it yet?
Coodie: He hasn’t seen it yet. I was just with him in California last week. When I went to the hotel, Kanye and Future were working on Donda 2, and Kanye had booked out the whole hotel. I ran into him, and I asked him, did you see the movie? He said, that’s not his process. He said he had eyes, and I said ok. I told him, when you watch it, you have to watch it with everyone who loves you genuinely and we’ve all got to be together so we can laugh, hug, and cry. There’s going to be a lot of crying, a lot of hugging, a lot of embracing. He’s going to see his life. This is his life. That’s it. Powerful.