“jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy” – Act II Review

Story posted March 4, 2022 in Arts & Entertainment by Jayson O’Connell.

Another week, another set of stories about Kanye West in the news.

This past week, West said that he was going to release his new album “Donda 2” only on Stem Players, a device that lets you separate the vocals, beat, and other parts of songs from each other.

He also hosted a listening party in Miami for his new album. He brought on a lot of the features on his album to perform and there were also a few technical difficulties in the performance.

After all this hype, the album was unsurprisingly not released. But act II of “jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy,” titled “Purpose,” was released Wednesday on Netflix.

In the first installment of this documentary, the viewers saw West slowly make a name for himself in the hip-hop industry. After struggling to get a deal, at the end of the episode West signs a deal with Roc-a-Fella records.

Act II takes the viewer through an emotional rollercoaster on West’s journey to his debut album release. At the beginning of the second act, Kanye talks about how people can relate to his music because he is not just rapping about hustling.

He also emphasizes how he doesn’t want to be compared to producers and how he wants to be known as a rapper.
West started working with other artists at Roc-a-Fella, including Jay-Z and Dame Dash.

This gets the audience excited for West as they see him make progress in the company and he gets closer to releasing his album.

The mood of the documentary then takes a turn when West gets in a car crash while working with Peedi Crakk in Los Angeles. This gets the viewers scared for West as he must have his mouth wired shut. This seems like it will have a significant effect on his career, if not end it.

West doesn’t let this slow him down as he records his famous song “Through the Wire” shortly after the accident.
This accident did slow down his progress though as the record company halted the production of West’s album, even when the wires were removed from his mouth.

Since he couldn’t record in Roc-A-Fella’s studios, West had to borrow studio time from other artists to record his album.

West still finds a way to record many songs including “Slow Jamz,” “Breathe In Breath Out” and “Get Em High.”
This gets viewers excited for West because he is making great songs even without the backing of his label. He continues to have that underdog mentality that he had in the first act.

West continues to find other ways to try to get himself in the public eye. He starts making a music video for “Through the Wire,” releases mixtapes and goes on “Def Poetry Jam."

The music video became one of the most popular videos of its time. It features people in West’s life reacting to the recording of the song.

Because of the success of the video, “The College Dropout” gets a release date. West also buys his first house in Los Angeles.

This is a very uplifting and happy moment in the episode. After the fear of never rapping again creeps its head in, we see all of West’s hard work pay off for him.

When “The College Dropout” drops, it reaches number two on the Billboard, and it receives 10 Grammy nominations.

Despite this euphoric moment, West’s next actions make the audience mad. He goes on tour without Coodie Simmons and shoots the “Jesus Walks” music video with another director and cameraman.

West turns his back on one of the people that believed in him the most and was always there for him.

The mood in the episode picks up again though when West wins his Grammy award for the best rap album. Despite his questionable actions, viewers can be proud of West because his hard work is continuing to pay off.

West gets on the stage and gives his infamous speech where he said, “Everybody wants to know what I would do if I didn’t win. I guess we’ll never know.”

Simmons then says that he felt this would be the end of the documentary because of the status of his relationship with West. But we then see flashes of West’s most controversial moments.

Viewers should expect to see West’s growth as an artist and his confidence build up in the next act.

Jayson O’Connell is a third-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email jbo5216@psu.edu