I Watched "Jeen-Yuhs" As A Lifelong Kanye Fan And These Are My 24 Takeaways
Kanye West, who now goes by Ye, may be the most polarizing artist of a generation. I remember the first time I listened to Ye. I illegally downloaded some of his earlier mixtapes, Get Well Soon and I'm Good.
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Soon after, College Dropout was released and changed the entire landscape of hip-hop. From there on out, it seemed like Ye changed the game with every subsequent release.
When Jeen-Yuhs was released on Netflix, I was beyond energized to dive in. Coodie, a friend of Ye from his teen years, had spent countless hours documenting Ye's rise to the top. This footage was put together for Jeen-Yuhs, a three-part docuseries that shows never-before-seen footage from Kanye's career. As a lifelong fan of Mr. West, I was curious to see what would unfold.
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Although the docuseries affirmed and reconfirmed many things I already knew, it also placed a light on many things I didn't.
Warning: This article touches on mental health, suicide, fatphobia, and addiction.
Here are my 24 takeaways after completing the three-part series.
1.It's the most real I've seen Ye talk about feeling suicidal and his addiction to pills. It's a very hard-hitting look at his mental health, being diagnosed bipolar, and his views on reality.
In Part Three of the series, Ye talks about how he has all these accolades, is one of the most awarded artists of all time, has a family and a house, but still struggles with thoughts of suicide and was once addicted to Percocets. It was a real and honest moment that helped me dissect some of the thoughts going through his head. Many people deal with thoughts of suicide, and the opioid epidemic has affected millions of Americans, so seeing Ye touch on this in such an open way really grounded me in his reality.
2.Ye is insecure about his weight, but he's honest about it.
At one point, Ye touches on the fact that he's "overweight" when speaking about his shoe designs. At that moment, you can see the insecurity in his energy and hear it in his voice, and he hopes that his clothing and shoe designs can help alleviate feelings of self-judgment. It just ties back into his lyrics from "All Falls Down," where he says, "Things we buy to cover up what's inside."
3.Ye has always considered himself a genius, even before his career took off.
At one point, Ye gets into a debate with Rhymefest early in his career where he calls himself a genius, and Rhymefest disagrees. We all knew Ye always saw himself as a genius, but I think people who are new to his persona think he wasn't always like this. He was. Rhymefest tries to talk Ye down from this take, but obviously (and hilariously) it doesn't work.
4.Ye's mother was his EVERYTHING. Her presence in his life kept his gigantic personality somewhat grounded.
This is well known, but oh man... Watching Donda be Ye's biggest supporter and guiding light really hit me hard. It just hammers home the loss this man must have felt when losing the most important person in his life. I don't believe he's been the same since, honestly. When Donda says that Ye is a giant,and when a giant looks in the mirror they just see themselves, whereas everyone else sees a giant, it was just a brilliant take. And when she sings along to "Hey Mama" and knows every word...and even remembers his first rap from grade school... Ughhh, the FEELS! Just watching Donda inspire and guide Ye was the BEST part of this series. Every moment she's onscreen, my heart is just filled with joy.
5.Ye always saw himself as a great rapper first, and a producer second.
When Ye was trying to get a record deal from Roc-a-Fella and people kept placing him as a great producer/rapper, he would get angry. He would rather be the 50th best rapper than the first best producer/rapper because he felt like people were trying to discount his lyrical ability. Personally, I think Ye is a top-five producer (Dr. Dre, Pharrell, Timbaland, and DJ Premier — in no specific order — round out my personal top five). So as someone who has always admired Ye's production skills, it was interesting to see him place his rapping over his producing indefinitely at one point.
6.Ye feels like his medication helps him be "normal" or gives him the ability to "turn alien to English." He seems very scared of his own capabilities.
This is a tricky one to explain and even digest. At one point in Part Three when Ye is talking to real estate investors, he starts speaking about being committed to a hospital and how he needed to take bipolar medication to even have a normal conversation with them. In this conversation, Ye seems almost fearful of himself and what he is capable of, but also adamant about finding balance and control and fighting the media's perception of him. This nation has a very complicated relationship with how we treat those with mental health diagnoses, especially Black men, and this moment shows the contrast between how the media often portrays Ye and how he feels about himself when it comes to being bipolar. He is very obviously a man that is going through something significantly real and understands the gravity of his situation.
7.Coodie is a real friend. When Ye appears to be struggling with his mental health or he feels the energy shift to where Ye is having a moment of uncertainty, he cuts off the camera.
It seems like when Ye is having VERY public struggles with his mental health, everyone wants to report it, share it, record it, screenshot it, etc. Coodie is a real friend, and he shows it every time he cuts the camera off as Ye seems to be heading down one of those paths. He even mentions how he feels uncomfortable recording Ye in that state at one point before turning the camera off.
I think of it like this. If your best friend or family member was very publicly having mental health issues, you would do your best to take them out of the limelight or attention, while strangers on the street would probably pull out their camera phones and start recording. Coodie is that good friend you can trust to not start recording in a situation where, obviously, recording someone is insensitive and unkind. To be fair, Ye is in control of his own social channels, and it's expected that people will share and discuss his posts. However, sometimes as a fan, I feel bad that we're literally watching someone deal with their mental health and it's just digested as clickbait
8.Ye's battles with his mental health and bipolar disorder can still be seen though.
In Part Three, we really start to see Ye's energy shift, and his mental health comes into focus. Coodie cuts off the camera when it starts getting too bad (like that moment with Justin Bieber on the couch), but you can still get the feeling.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) says, "All of us experience ups and downs throughout a given year, but for people with bipolar disorder, these peaks and valleys are much more severe — from the highs of mania to the lows of depression. Unlike typical mood swings that pass quickly, bipolar disorder features cycles or episodes that lasts from weeks to months." NAMI goes on to state:
"According to the APA's Dictionary of Psychology, mania is a state of over-activity, excitement and psychomotor agitation. This state of noticeably elevated mood can also result in severe disruption to one's daily life. Mania is often accompanied by grandiosity, over-optimism, or impaired judgment. Mania can also feature psychotic symptoms like hallucinations or delusions, which can cause a sense of detachment from reality.
Hypomania is a less severe form of mania, which features increased energy, activity, and mood.
Depression is a state of persistent low mood and a decrease in energy and activity. When any of these are present for a specific length of time, they are called an episode.
It's not uncommon for people to experience both manic/hypomanic and depressive symptoms in one episode. This is known as an episode with mixed features. People experiencing an episode with mixed features can feel deeply sad, empty or hopeless, while, at the same, time feeling extremely energized."
9.Ye self-prophesized his ascension when no one took him seriously, which helps me understand why he doesn't like listening to anybody.
Ye spent a lot of time in Part One trying to tell people he would be great. He raps "All Falls Down" to anyone that will listen at Roc-a-Fella, but nobody took him seriously. How stupid do those record executives and A&Rs feel today? They had one of the most awarded artists of all time rapping a classic hit to them in their face, but they refused to listen. Talk about not doing your job... No wonder Ye finds it hard to listen to people throughout his career. If you knew for a fact you found gold in your backyard but everyone ignored you/shrugged you off, how much would you listen to people in the future after you cashed in on those riches?
10.Ye's love for Chicago is unmatched.
Ye shouts out Chicago at all times and was desperate to put his city on the map in Part One. We knew Ye loved Chi-Town, but to see a behind-the-scenes take on how much he loves his city was heartwarming.
11.Ye is one of the hardest workers in all of show business.
Work, work, work. Ye would work on OTHER people's studio time. He worked through the grief of his mother's death. He worked so much that he moved his family to Wyoming so he could work out there. Mr. West is a workaholic, something else I already knew. It even seems to border on being unhealthy in the docuseries. Regardless, seeing the behind-the-scenes work ethic mentality just inspired me to work harder.
12.Ye's ear for production places him amongst the best producers of all time.
Although Ye saw himself as a rapper first, he was definitely a producer of the upper echelon. I mean...he was producing for Ludacris, Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Scarface, Talib Kweli, Alicia Keys, and many more before he was considered a rapper to the masses. His ear for flipping samples and crafting classic records reminds me of RZA — another rapper/producer who used the technique of speeding up old records to create timeless hits.
13.Ye will do whatever it takes to get his projects done by his standards.
Ye was literally borrowing studio time using thousands of dollars from his own pocket to get The College Dropout completed. He refused to take no for an answer and built songs like "Jesus Walks" and "Family Business" from a place of truth and honesty. When his label wouldn't back him, he just doubled down and went harder to get his album done himself.
14.Coodie is a genius himself.
Coodie had the vision, man. I can't even count how many times he just KNEW he had to fly somewhere or be somewhere to film a moment. He just KNEW. None of this is possible without Coodie, and his genius needs to be praised. Give this man his flowers!
15.Ye really loves Coodie, but I don't like how he left him behind when he blew up.
When Ye started to blow up post The College Dropout, he really left Coodie behind. That kinda stung, man. Coodie is a real friend and dope genius, and it was nice to see them hook back up in more recent years in Part Three. But seeing Ye forget Coodie's name multiple times at the Late Registration album release in Part Two, and Coodie being pushed to the outside for years, was just not cool.
16.Ye was destined to run into friction with Roc-a-Fella and Jay-Z.
In Part One, we see Ye fighting for the respect of Roc-a-Fella heads Jay-Z and Dame Dash. Although he does finally gain their respect, just the fact that it took them so long to take him seriously was a seed that grew into beef later on. It took the public and others like Mos Def, Ludacris, and Pharrell co-signing on Ye to make Dame believe. And maybe Jay just had his own stuff going on, but he wasn't trying to really hear Ye as a rapper until the Blueprint 2 era. I can see Ye holding a low-key grudge, one he used to fuel himself to push harder and be better, to impress these two hip-hop moguls. But that seed, which started as a grudge to be better, would obviously grow into something more sinister later in Ye's career as he tried to overtake Jay as an icon.
17.Ye dealt with the grief of his mother dying by doubling down on work. Instead of stopping to process, he buried himself in his art.
When Donda died unexpectedly, Ye just doubled down on his work. We see clips of him in Part Two where he claims his mother wanted him to keep it moving and kill it in his career. However, it just doesn't seem like Ye ever slowed down to process his own emotions and grieve. To lose such a strong and important figure in your life CANNOT be even close to easy. Dealing with loss and grappling with our own emotions can look different for everyone. But the fact that Ye dug himself deeper into his work and art instead of taking time off to just heal and process just seems like a precursor for some of his later implosions.
18.It feels like when Ye was committed to the hospital for a psychotic break, it was caused by years of working to the limits and not properly dealing with the grief of the most important person in his life dying unexpectedly.
This is a follow-up to #15. Ye was committed to a hospital in 2016 after several public breakdowns. The man pretty much never stopped working after his mother died. If anything, he started working harder. He pushed himself to his limits, and this just further opens the discussion on mental health, especially in the Black community. Black men are often supposed to be "tough and strong," and showing signs of "weakness" are looked down upon. There's this pressure to not cry, to not deal with mental health.
While Ye has rapped about being proud to show emotion (like on "Family Business"), he did what felt like the opposite for years, and continued to build this public persona of grandiosity like everything was OK (or even better than OK). It all just feels, to me, like he was building a big, tough exterior instead of taking time to heal. I'm definitely no expert here on mental health, and I'm just on the outside looking in. But even Coodie comments in Part Two about how he saw Ye change after the death of his mother, and watching the docuseries, we can see his mental energy and state change from that point on as well.
19.Ye understands that he needs a translator.
In Part One, we see a moment where Ye admits he needs a translator and asks about whether or not he should tweet something. It's no secret that Ye has had a hard time communicating his thoughts, but it was just a little funny to see him admitting it behind the scenes.
20.Ye has always been religious.
I mean...this is the guy who debuted "Jesus Walks" as a single on his first album. However, I've recently heard media takes that Ye's Sunday Service and religious albums are manipulative tactics. It's like everyone forgot who he always was. However, seeing Ye speak about God and his beliefs in Part One just reaffirms the fact that his faith has always been there.
21.Ye was always obsessed with fashion.
Ye wanted to be the "best-dressed rapper" in the world from the beginning. I already knew Ye wanted to be a fashion icon, but once again, seeing the behind-the-scenes takes on his obsession with being fly was awesome. Watching his fashion lines blow up now is just an extension of his obsession with fashion from the jump.
22.Ye's ego may be sky high but he still yearned for acceptance.
Watching Ye rap for any artist who would listen, from Pharrell, to Mos Def, to Scarface, to Ludacris, really shows how much he just wanted to be accepted as a rapper. He wanted respect from his peers, and he wanted the affirmation that he was dope. Although Ye's ego was, and still is, through the roof, he still yearned for acceptance from his counterparts. This really just showed me the two sides of his ego: the "I'm the shit and I know it" side and the "I need to be accepted by my peers" side.
23.Mos Def was one of the first lyricists to take Ye seriously as a rapper.
Shoutout to Yasiin Bey, formerly known as Mos Def. This man was trying (along with Talib Kweli) to get Ye a record deal before anyone else took him seriously. He saw the vision and knew Ye was the future of hip-hop. He tried to plug him as much as possible as well. I always loved Bey, but this made me love him even more.
24.Ye felt somewhat guilty about his suburban upbringing due to hip-hop sterotypes.
Ye reminds viewers, on more than one occasion, that he lived in a rougher spot before his mom moved to a better neighborhood at a young age. It's almost like he's somewhat ashamed of his mom moving them to a nicer spot. This comes from hip-hop culture's rather strange obsession with coming from "the mud." While it's dope to grind your way from nothing to the top, it's also dope to have parents that strived for a better life for their kids. It wasn't like millionaire nepotism played a role in his come-up.
What did you think about Jeen-Yuhs? Let me know in the comments section below!
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org. The Trevor Project, which provides help and suicide-prevention resources for LGBTQ youth, is 1-866-488-7386.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline is 1-888-950-6264 (NAMI) and provides information and referral services; GoodTherapy.org is an association of mental health professionals from more than 25 countries who support efforts to reduce harm in therapy.
