Film looks back at Kanye West as a young, awkward, audacious Chicago rapper

A young Kanye West takes in the lights of Times Square during his quest for a record label signing in a scene from “jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy.” | Netflix

Like a “Get Back” for Millennials, “jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy” gifts fans with three films of never-before-seen intimate footage of a musical genius. While the Beatles documentary focused on a time capsule of just a few weeks, “jeen-yuhs” (pronounced “genius”) offers the fans footage from filmmaker Coodie Simmons’ staggering, unprecedented access to Ye’s origins, spanning a 20-year period, on a collection of 330 mini DV tapes.

The intimacy of the video footage could have only been captured by a close friend or family. Says Simmons of West during a Time Studios interview: “He became a brother to me during this experience.”