Kanye West was demanding and disappointed the director who makes a documentary about the rapper’s life

Los Angeles (AFP).- Disappointed but not surprised was the director of the new documentary about Kanye West with the rapper’s last-minute demand to re-edit the production that took years of work.

Clarence coodie Simmons began filming his then-friend Kanye West in 2001, curious as to how far the ambitious young musician from Chicago could go.

The result was 320 hours of material that records its trajectory to stardom, condensed in the seven-hour trilogy jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy (jeen-yuhs: A Kanye West Trilogy)whose first part will be available on Netflix this Wednesday.

However, after years of work, West took to Instagram last month to demand that he handle “the final editing and sign off” of the project, so he could “be in command of my own image.”

“I told Kanye that he had to trust this movie 100% (…) He told me that he trusted,” Simmons said in an interview with AFP. “So when I saw his Instagram, I was a little disappointed.”

Last week West, who now goes by the name Ye, continued to make new demands, including rap superstar Drake taking over the narration.

Netflix has not commented publicly.

While working on the project, Simmons took significant steps to ensure that West was happy with the production. In 2005, for example, he gave up releasing the film as planned because the rapper said he “wasn’t ready for the world to see what his real self was like,” the director said.

Estranged, Simmons would have little access to West for the next decade.

But in an apparent reconciliation, West went to a screening of the documentary on Friday and hugged Simmons. “People try to cancel us and we distance ourselves or stop talking to each other, to communicate,” the rapper told the audience.

“I will pay attention”

The documentary addresses West’s mental health, including the bipolar disorder for which he was hospitalized in 2016, and which received attention again in 2020 when he tried to run for the presidency of the United States.

Reshooting a meeting two years ago in which West ranted to real estate investors that he had taken medication for bipolar disorder so he could have “a normal conversation and translate the foreign into English,” Simmons was so shocked by the behavior of his friend who turned off the camera.

“It was the first time I had captured Kanye like this. I felt like I had to put the camera down and listen to him. To be there for him as a brother, and not as a director,” said Simmons, a former comedian and television personality.

“It happened a couple of times, where I was like, ‘Okay, I’m going to pay attention.'”

At Friday’s screening, West said he had made “what you might think are mistakes in public” to show that limits on blacks are “just a smoke screen.”

“We use brands that are not ours, we play for basketball teams that are not ours. The time is now,” he added.

“Carefree and happy”

The controversy over West’s lawsuits over the documentary jeen yuhs has generated more publicity ahead of the release of the documentary.

Simmons and co-director Chike Ozah hope showing West at his most vulnerable moments as he built his career will help the world see a figure known for his egotistical outbursts and arrogance in a different light.

Ozah, for example, recalls an early scene filmed at a chain restaurant where West was celebrating having wires removed from his jaw after a car accident.

“He had been on a liquid diet only, so he had lost considerable weight. He had little squares on his abdomen,” recalls Ozah.

“It is a moment that you shared with Kanye. He even grabs the camera from Coodie and starts filming him, and he seems so carefree and happy.”

“It’s a moment you cherish, seeing it like that,” says Ozah, who has a reputation for being a perfectionist.

Is West ready now for the world to finally see his true self?

“It’s not about whether he’s ready. I would expect him to see this movie,” Simmons replies. “The world needs to see this. It’s not about Kanye and me.”