Just who is the musical mastermind formerly known as Kanye West? Film directors Coodie and Chike take music fans behind the curtain with Ye in the duo’s upcoming Netflix documentary jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy.
During a conversation for Thursday’s (Dec. 2) Netflix Playlist showcase, ahead of the documentary’s 2022 premiere, longtime friends and Kanye West collaborators Coodie and Chike (pronounced cheek-A) discuss insights gleaned from chronicling the artist/entrepreneur’s trajectory for more than 20 years. Providing compelling context is a video clip from 2002 featuring a fearless West freestyling with Yasiin Bey (Mos Def).
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Additional nuggets mined from 267 hours of footage include the genesis behind the video for West’s 2003 debut single “Through the Wire” — Coodie and Chike’s first joint project — as well as their impressions of the future superstar then and now. West was a kid coming in for haircuts at a local Chicago barbershop when Coodie met him.
“He would come with beats,” recalls a smiling Coodie. “I remember he had the one beat that Jay-Z picked later on in life called H to Izz-O [‘Izzo (H.O.V.A.)’]. Yo, this was so ill. Here was this kid with braces … talented. This dude wasn’t scared of nothing.”
Chike positions the documentary as a “whole history lesson of music. We’re crossing generations in three films. At the end, Kanye is collaborating with artists that were babies. But the crazy part is that Kanye’s a throughline; still as relevant at the end as he in the beginning because his music passes the test of time.”
Watch Coodie and Chike’s illuminating Netflix Playlist conversation about jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy below:
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