Coodie captures the tension of Ye’s early years by staying close while the rapper receives pressure from neglect and humiliation. We see him jumping around Roc-A-Fella’s offices, playing “All Falls Down” to bored secretaries and experienced A&R representatives and almost anyone who wants to listen. At best, Ye is taken as a nuisance, and at worst as a joke. We see him repeatedly denied a record deal while he is still anointed just enough to continue making beats for Roc-A-Fella rappers, after the incredible success of Ye-produced “Ye-Izzo” by Jay-Z, which became the rapper’s first top 10 single.
Roc-A-Fella’s list seems to relate to Ye the way teenagers treat an annoying friend who owns a car. He is an outsider, but he is useful. Many rappers are puzzled by the presence of Kudi and his camera – they see him as no one who deserves such attention – but overcome their confusion to ask him for another blow. Meanwhile, he tells everyone who will listen: “This camera is for a documentary about me.” He is excited to use the presence of Coodie’s camera as a legitimizing force.
Jean-Juchs it also offers a treasure trove of small profits for someone who needed them. In a series that will make you cry, he returns to his mother’s apartment in Chicago and she impeccably recites one of his poems for the high school talent show. In another, it turns out that you cling to him as he enters part of a Jay-Z song. And in the second episode, we relate to a spectacular moment while Farrell listens to “Through the Wire” for the first time and is amazed by the genius.
Still, Jean-Juchs offers relatively few comments on his topic. Coodie contented herself with being in Ye’s presence, keeping silent for long periods of time. When Kudi talks, he rarely argues with the star or even asks provocative questions. As a result, the doctor feels out of step with the way we usually take Ye – either challenged in interviews or hellishly inclined to tell his own story. In Coodie’s footage, he is free to be himself, to inhabit a number of poses. He is wrong and disappointed, vulnerable and victorious, cunning and confused. While this is exciting to watch, it is ultimately to the detriment of the documentary. Jean-Juchs he is often not interested in a point of view, much less in judging his living subject.
But abandoning the project to explain Ye’s controversial legacy, it transforms into something else: a complaint about a torn tie. Kudi seems to know that he is too close to the topic, which may be the reason why the documentary works best as a story about a falling apart friendship between the two men.
Although the first two parts provide in-depth documentation of the rise of Ye, the third part begins with a leap in time. It’s not long, but it’s annoying. We watch Kudi and his camera transform from a central role in Ye’s life at the 2006 Grammy Afterparty, when a drunken Ye seems to forget Kudi’s name several times. It hurts to look at Kudi’s face here when he acknowledges the change in his proximity to the star.
From that moment on, the distance only increases. There is a check-in here or there, but mostly the couple disagree. As Coodie gradually loses access to Ye, he begins to rely on YouTube news clips and fan footage, and the distance becomes a comparison; videos of Ye, who is repulsed by the idea that he has to take a break to grieve for his mother, are set against the backdrop of tender footage of Kudi taking pictures of how he and Donda are for each other’s worlds. Ye’s video of himself after the defeat of Taylor Swift contrasts with the first days of his career, when he always had a room full of people to lean on.