“This doc isn’t about [Kanye]. It’s for the dreamers,” said director Clarence ‘Coodie’ Simmons at the USC School of Cinematic Arts on March 8 after a screening of “jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy - Part One” that invited Simmons and his co-collaborators Chike-Ezekpeazu Osebuka and J. Ivy.
Simmons, a Chicago-native, has worked in the entertainment industry for decades. A longtime friend of Kanye West, Simmons is the man behind the camera throughout the documentary film. For over twenty years, Simmons filmed moments with West with hopes to paint the portrait of a young kid from Chicago turned rap superstar and celebrity fixture.
Simmons, who shot and narrated the triology, began following West during his beat-making, music-producing days as a close friend of West’s and an aspiring documentarian after the two met in 1998. He knew West had the talent, drive and confidence to be great – and he wanted a slice of it.
“There was no doubt in my mind that he was gonna be a star,” said Simmons in the opening minutes of the film.
“jeen-yuhs” part one is an intimate look inside West’s experience. The journey began in 2002 when Simmons traded in his comedy career for his VCR tape to follow West, who moved from his Chicago hometown to New York City with dreams of securing a record deal and transforming his image from amateur producer to professional rapper.
The film feels intimate and uncut: the audience can feel the energy of West while he raps now-hit songs from his first album, “The College Dropout,” in his shoebox-sized apartment. The camera follows the pain, energy, and excitement felt by West in the beginning of his career. Even West, the now-billionaire, struggled with rejection and skepticism despite his talent and drive.
He’s humanized through the casual footage collected of West and his mother, Donda, dubbed “Mama West” by Simmons, Chike and Ivy. Viewers see West in a different light: he’s captured in his childhood home, playfully singing with his mother, cracking jokes with his friends while joy-riding alongside Simmons and sheepishly taking out his retainers to lose his lisp before rapping.
All three visiting project collaborators explained how emotional it was to unpack West’s life over the past two decades, from the loss of his mother to his evolution as musician. It depicts the relationship between Simmons and West, a relationship that Simmons’ co-collaborators Chike and Ivy, coined a big brother type dynamic.
“Kanye learned a lot from Coodie in the room,” said Ivy during the screening’s Q&A session.
“Living in those moments pulls at your heartstrings but at the same time it fills you with gratitude,” said Ivy, who talked about times when playing back the footage prompted hours of reminsicing on different days. The footage consisted of 330 hour-long mini DVD tapes of footage flipped into just four hours of documentary content for the trilogy.
“jeen-yuhs” aired in January 2022 to tell a story, “centered on God and love,” said Ivy.This narrative was echoed by Simmons, who emphasized the importance of trust, faith, and patience throughout the entire filmmaking process — which worked as a vessel to build this art from the ground up but to strip down the identity of West and to teach anyone who watches “jeen-yuhs” to never give up on their ambitions.
“Fear kills dreams,” said Ivy. “When you walk into a room, be yourself.”
Anyone curious about the highs and lows of stardom or hoping to receive insight into the life and mind of West can now stream all three episodes of the docuseries on Netflix.