FriYe – jeen-yuhs

I checked the archives and i did my FriYe series (where I just discussed my favorite songs on 4 kanye albums) in 2017. needless to say a bunch of shit has changed since then, most especially kanye.

we watched the jeen-yuhs docuseries on Netflix. and I’m about to talk about it. not exactly kanye or any of his actions but the way the documentary was done. I have a lot of feelings about my relationships with artists and what they owe me and what I owe them and how like any relationship they change and you might split up forever but wish them well (me and jay-z), or you might split up and come back together (me and john mayer), or you might be like I don’t even know that person anymore (me and ye).

jeen-yuhs is a 3-part docuseries on Netflix. coodie (Clarence simmons) shot most of the footage over the past 21 years and does the narration. he was a comedian in the late 90s/early 2000s in Chicago and hosted a late night cable access show that showed the local rap scene. every city has one. and around the scene was a young kid named kanye west who did a lot of producing. coodie thought it would be a good idea to film kanye while he worked on his beats (by this time he had sold Izzo) and tried to make it as a rapper. think Hoop Dreams but backpack rap.

part 1 takes you through underground to getting a record deal with roc-a-fella (and it includes a scene where kanye is just busting into people’s offices and putting his cd in their cd players)
part 2 takes you from the car accident to College Dropout release (2004)
part 3 is from Late Registration (2005) to Kanye running for president (2020).

i need someone to discuss at length the way kanye’s voice changed from the early 2000s footage to the 2017+ footage. it is especially not audio and video quality.

i knew part 3 was going to be hard to watch because it would include the passing of Ms. Donda West along with I guess literally everything kanye did after 2017 but I didn’t realize exactly how hard it would be. kanye has publically dealt with mental issues, including an involuntary hospital stay for mental health reasons (that I somehow just totally forgot about???), but to watch what seems to be bipolar episodes in real time is hard. fortunately coodie wasn’t just someone that wanted to make a film, he is someone who really cares for kanye and even went so far as to cut the camera completely off in some points.

but after watching this and my pure obsession with The Beatles’ Get Back I am now on the hunt for music documentaries. even a VH1 Behind the Music will do. and it’s crazy how in a time when literally everything is documented, so little is worth being recorded. (as I type on this blog for the past 11 years). like did coodie know that he would be filming Jamie Foxx ad-libbing Slow Jamz? did he know how precious all those memories with Donda would be? did that dude recording the Beatles know he was getting Paul just making up Get Back right there on the spot (I have yet to recover)?

i do highly suggest watching parts 1 and 2 if you were ever a kanye fan but I completely understand why nobody would watch it. i mean I get it.

now I need to find Woodstock footage or something. a Spice Girls documentary. anything.