This is a story about brilliance, about nerve, about audacity. It is a story about family and home. It is a story about Kanye West.
In “jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy,” a new documentary from Netflix, fans and detractors get a raw glimpse into Kanye West on the brink. This is Kanye not quite on the cusp, but on the periphery of it, tasting his success in fits and bursts but never getting a chance to savor it. This is the Kanye who knows who he is — deeply, profoundly — even as he struggles to be heard above a hundred other voices in the room. Always brilliant, bright and driven, here, audiences get a deeper look at the time before the rest of the world saw that greatness, too. Created in a three-act structure by directors Clarence “Coodie” Simmons and Chike Ozah, “jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy” is, minus a somewhat middling third act, mostly captivating, contemplative and joyful.
Unlike more traditional documentaries, “jeen-yuhs” begins with Kanye already at work. There are little lingering insights into West’s childhood or education or earliest inspirations before he began making music, which may be frustrating to some. However, minutes into the film, it is clear Simmons is making a stronger argument for West as a fully-formed mind. Do those moments matter? In the grand scheme of things, probably not. The Kanye we know today — complicated, frustrating, ablaze — was always that Kanye.
