“When someone comes up and says something like, ‘I am a god,’ everybody says, ‘Who does he think he is?’ I just told you who I thought I was: a god!”

– Kanye West

 

 

I

I recently watched a documentary about Kanye West called jeen-yuhs. All in all, I found the experience to be incredibly refreshing. Because let’s face it: at this point everybody knows that Kanye West is synonymous with galloping assholery.

But watching an entire three-part documentary about him revealed so much to me about his vulnerable side, even if it meant seeing his story as a cautionary one. 

The documentary is presented from the perspective of Coodie, a cinematographer and longtime friend of Kanye.

Coodie first met Kanye when he was a nobody. Right off the bat, Coodie was impressed by Kanye’s grit and hunger. There was no doubt in his mind that Kanye was destined for great success as a musician. So, he decided to make it his priority to follow Kanye around with his camera for the next few years to “see how far his dreams would take him.”

In the first two acts of the documentary, we get to see an intimate portrait of Kanye in his most humble circumstances — being broke, struggling to get a record deal, and not being taken seriously in the industry. Yet, through it all, he remained relentless in his dream of being a great rapper. 

Closely following Kanye around, you couldn’t help but empathize with him during his lows. And when he finally gets the recognition that he deserves — even becoming one of the world’s most commercially successful artists — you feel proud, and you root for him. It even inspires you to not give up on your own dreams. 

As Coodie himself said, “Watching his dreams become reality showed me — it showed everyone — that when you move in faith, all things are possible.”

Once Kanye became a mainstream success, Coodie thought that his work was done. He put away his camera, and he shelved the documentary idea for a long while. 

But the bigger Kanye’s success grew, the more he felt entitled and became out of touch with reality. From his infamous interruption of Taylor Swift’s award acceptance speech, to his admiration of Hitler and denial of the Holocaust and calling himself a god — Kanye increasingly unraveled into a raving egomaniac as time went by. 

Because of this, Coodie realized that his work on Kanye during his formative years was just a small arc in his story. After many years, he crossed paths with Kanye again and resumed filming, hoping to share an impartial glimpse into Kanye’s character that most people don’t get to see. 

“They were calling him crazy,” said Coodie. “But to me, it seemed like he was crying out for help.”

 

 

II

In a particular scene in jeen-yuhs, we are transported to a time when Kanye’s career had just taken off. We see an argument unfold when a fellow rapper, Rhymefest disagrees with Kanye for calling himself a genius.

“Who are you to call yourself a genius?” he says to Kanye. “It’s for other people to look at you and say, ‘That man’s a genius.’ For you to feel disrespected because somebody don’t think that you’re something, you gotta get yourself together, man.”

While Kanye’s unwavering self-belief was the defining trait which carried him through to his success, it also led to his undoing. 

In the documentary, we could see that the dangerously arrogant side of Kanye’s self-belief was always there on some level, even when he was a nobody. But a central figure in keeping this side in check was his mother, Donda. 

“Kanye was always self-absorbed in a way,” she said when asked about Kanye’s upbringing. Even though Donda recognized his talents and was his biggest supporter, she was also always there to keep him grounded. 

“Anybody that does anything that much and that long and is that good, it’s got to pay off,” she encouraged Kanye. “You can’t go over there and do nothing but blow up. The main thing is you got to do something that you really love to do.”

But she also told him, “You got a lot of confidence that comes off as a little arrogant. The giant looks in the mirror and sees nothing. Everybody else sees the giant.”

After Donda passed away, Kanye’s public image and mental health started to truly go downhill. He no longer had his “angel to look after him”. He only had himself. 

 

 

III

Not “going overboard” or not overindulging in success may sound simple enough. But in reality, it’s not always easy. Because if we were honest with ourselves, it’s fun to go overboard. It’s fun to carouse in our highs. It’s fun to feel like we have power over other people, like we’re finally able to do the things that we weren’t able to do when we had nothing.

But as we already know, going overboard is also self-destructive. Being an asshole obviously has its consequences on our own mental health, on the poor decisions we make, and on our relationships. 

Even Kanye surely knows this.

If there’s one song that best illustrates Kanye’s own awareness of this reality, it is POWER. The song is both a celebration and condemnation of overindulging in success. On one hand, he is criticizing people who are in this position. Yet on the other hand, he is also affirming himself as the only one worthy of being glorified. 

The interlude of the song particularly stands out to me. The song gradually takes a melancholic turn as a somber piano riff plays in the background, while Kanye is still boasting about his power. 

Eventually, he sings, “I got the power to make your life so exciting.” But rather than the last few syllables, “so-ex-ci-ting” being echoed, we hear the almost similar-sounding syllables, “su-i-cide” instead. The following and final part of the song is dedicated to addressing his mental health issues. With that, we are left with the impression that he is trapped in the prison of his own making, which he is simultaneously so proud of having built. 

He may be aware that he is killing himself inside by going overboard. But at the same time, he doesn’t know how to stop himself, as he is too addicted to the highs.

Now, the question is, how can we prevent ourselves from making the same mistake?

Remember Donda’s advice to Kanye, that “the giant looks in the mirror and sees nothing”? Well, what did she mean by that?

Let’s take a look back at Kanye’s behavior. A common theme that we see in Kanye’s egotistic ramblings is in how he sees himself. A genius. A god. Shakespeare in the flesh. 

My understanding of Donda’s advice is that truly great people waste no time being concerned with how great they are. They don’t care for admiring their own image, because they’re busy doing what great people do, instead of being great. The moment they think they’re great, they stop being great.

We can tie this back with Kanye’s argument with Rhymefest. As Rhymefest rightly said, it’s not our business to talk about how great we are. Let other people talk about us if they want to. But we shouldn’t get too caught up in that either. 

We can choose to focus on our art, and the work that we love to do. We can let success and recognition be by-products of doing what we love, rather than our overarching goal. As Coodie saw in Kanye, and as we could see too in the documentary, Kanye is always in his greatest spirits when he is lost in the creative process. 

This is the message that I’m leaving behind for you, and myself too, in this week’s article. Always remember that your art is always bigger than yourself. So, always make your art the focus, and not you.

Get busy making art, instead of being an artist.

 

 

“It was like God saying, ‘I’m about to hand you the world. Just know, at any given time, I could take it away from you.’”

– Kanye West