In October 2019, Coodie, a former stand-up comedian-turned-music video and documentary director known only by one name, brought an overstuffed duffel bag to his big meeting with Time Studios in New York. Executives sitting in for his movie pitch — a look at the life and career of rapper Kanye West, complete with an intense archive of unseen footage spanning more than two decades — assumed he had come from the gym.
“I dumped the bag out right there on the table,”He says. “When they saw the pile of mini-DV tapes, they greenlit it.” To suggest that Coodie and his longtime creative partner and co-director Chike Ozah were finally getting their shot wouldn’t be quite accurate. The ride-along about the personal history and polarizing celebrity of our time was always going find its way to audiences. (As this issue went to press West was named as the main suspect in an LAPD misdemeanor battery probe). Timing is everything, just like an album that has been delayed or a concert at a stadium from West (known as Ye) in recent years.
The footage was edited into three feature-length documentaries titled “Jeen-Yuhs.”All three films were acquired by Netflix last fall. Attendees at the virtual Sundance Film Festival can get a sneak peek of the story before it launches on Netflix later in the year. It’s hard to wrap one’s brain around the sheer volume of footage the men have of West, from his most intimate conversations with his late mother, Donda, to candid moments of his struggle to pivot from producing hit music to taking center stage. His run-ins with Taylor Swift, Donald Trump and even a few glimpses of Kim Kardashian and Beyoncé are included too.
Coodie met West for the first time in Chicago, where he was a host on a music-oriented cable access series called “The West Show.” “Channel Zero.” Part of the show’s mission was unearthing the city’s vibrant hip-hop scene, which struggled to produce a commercial star before West and rapper Common.
“I kept hearing about Kanye and kept running into him, but I finally saw him perform and I was like, ‘This dude is a superstar!’” Coodie says. “Watching the movie ‘Hoop Dreams’ is really what gave me the idea for this film. I wanted to do a ‘Hoop Dreams’ on Kanye and see how far he’d go.”
Their chronicles of West would last a staggering 22 years, with one significant break — a stretch that began in 2007 after West’s mother died due to complications from liposuction surgery. They reconnected following West’s highly public breakdown (“or breakthrough, Kanye would call it,”Coodie speaks during the 2016 worldwide tour in support of the album “The Life of Pablo.”
Variety screened the first of the three docs, which begins around 2001 when West was producing hits such as Jay-Z’s “H to the Izzo.” A parade of rap legends including Mos Def, Talib Kweli and hitmaker Just Blaze are all seen in West’s orbit, though the film suggests that many in the industry were invested in keeping West locked in the studio making premium beats. Given his extraordinary influence on many genres of music, fashion and film, it seems strange to recall West’s struggle for legitimacy as an artist. It is even more strange that West is listed on the documentaries as a producer, but he wasn’t given final cut. This would be considered a victory for the directors as West is well-known for being extremely controlling and meticulous about his image.
“I said, ‘Dude, you have to trust me.’ And he did, 100%,” Coodie says. “Mind you, when his team and the business-people have gotten involved, they’re of course going to have their say. But I needed to tell this story. It’s not about making Kanye likable or not. The footage doesn’t lie. What makes the film special is that it’s not something definitive; it’s his journey through my vision.”
Over the past two decades, there were several times when the directors felt the film could be cut and released, but West’s story kept evolving.
“I was always arguing with people that this dude is about to win Grammys,” Coodie says. “That was the main goal of the doc was to see if he achieved that. But we always say, you can’t let your imagination get in the way of God’s manifestation. I’ve seen the Grammys, but God had something way more in mind for Kanye — he had running for president in mind for Kanye.”The movie does indeed follow West on his 2020 campaign trail.
Now, back to Part 1 “Jeen-Yuhs.”A lot of the drama revolves around West being featured on an MTV News segment called “You Hear It First,”This was created to break emerging artists. It is a small reminder of the influence that MTV had among teens who influenced the music business. Coodie met Ozah at Times Square through a mutual friend, where they shared a love for film. Coodie was later in L.A., where West was writing the treatment for his breakout single. “Through the Wire,”This was done through a caged jaw after a near fatal car accident.
“I get a call, and he’s saying they had no money but this idea for a music video,” Ozah says. “I was familiar with Kanye on the producer tip, and I respected him. So Coodie and I did it, and have been business partners ever since.”
They have produced several documentaries apart from the long-gestating Kanye Project. “A Kid From Coney Island,”Stephon Marbury is an ex-NBA star. “Gangster With a Heart of Gold,” about gang member-turned-politician Noonie G. Both Coodie and Ozah, however, recognize the gravity around “Jeen-Yuhs.”
“What I think resonates about Kanye, whether people have had the same amount of success or not, is maybe they got crippled by adversity,” Ozah says. “Kanye didn’t let that cripple him. He didn’t cower to it — he met it head on. He leveraged every loss to light his fire. That’s the mindset when you’re operating in your gift — you have to believe the doors will open for you and continue to put in the work. Kanye never stopped, and neither did we.”
The directors say they weren’t precious about the more incendiary parts of West’s history. “I saw a lot of that stuff just as the rest of the world did, like the Taylor Swift situation and then, man, the Trump stuff,” Coodie recalls of infamous West moments like interrupting Swift’s VMA acceptance speech in 2009 to decry her win over Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies,”His wearing of a MAGA hat, and meetings with Trump during the early days of Trump’s presidency.
But alas, the cameras didn’t follow West everywhere. Reality TV viewers shouldn’t expect too much Kardashian content. “When he got married, I wasn’t invited to the wedding,” Coodie says. “This film is truly from my perspective, and the camera wasn’t filming Kim. I’ve always said, if anyone wants to know anything about that part of Kanye’s life, watch ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians.’”