The three-part documentary series Jeen-Yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy (Netflix) opens with footage of Kanye West behaving exactly like a seasoned observer of Kanye West’s recent career might expect the 44-year-old rapper to behave. He is in the Dominican Republic, simultaneously recording a vocal, urging his people to push forward with his desperately ill-considered and disastrous 2020 presidential run, dealing with the contracts pertaining to the documentary you’re watching and tweeting something that’s clearly incautious.
“Don’t tweet that?” he snaps at someone off-camera, who has evidently suggested he think twice, before firmly pressing the send button. Then the footage cuts out. According to the documentary’s makers Clarence “Coodie” Simmons and Chike Ozah, in the Dominican Republic they felt obliged to stop filming in order to spare viewers West’s notorious and long-winded rants: fuelled, Simmons has suggested, by West drinking on top of medication for his bipolar disorder, much against doctor’s orders.
