Jeen-Yus: Why Everyone Should See The Kanye West Documentary on Netflix

Life lessons in self-belief, creativity and determination

Screen shot from Twitter

I have a confession.

I am slightly addicted to Netflix. When I am not watching Narcos for the umpteenth time, picking up the very finest swear words in Spanish, I am on the look out for mind blowing documentaries, which is never in short supply on the streaming platform.

It was with this in mind, that I proceeded to check out the latest output on Kanye West.

Kanye West, these days, seems completely off his rocker. One minute he is busy stalking his ex-wife — Kim Kardashian, the next minute, he is berating her for being a bad mother and these days he is out and about with someone who looks exactly like the mother of his children.

But what this documentary does is to cut away from the nonsense we have seen lately and take us to what the man was all about and how he changed the world of Rap and hip hop forever.

What this article does to give you a few life lessons from the genius documentary.

Lesson 1: Never Let Anyone Define You

By the late 1990s, Kanye West had produced a few hit tracks for prominent rappers such as Mos-Def, Talib Kweli and Mason Bertha, better known as Mase.

Moving on to the early 00s, Kanye West had worked with Jay-Z, Scar Face and Alicia Keys.

In the eyes of the industry players, Kanye was nothing more than a decent producer who could be relied upon to generate hit songs.

But in his eyes, He knew that he was a decent rapper.

Getting the world to see his phenomenal rapping skills proved to be a trickier proposition altogether, as Kanye West wasn’t your typical rapper from the ‘hood’ who had been to jail and being involved in drive by shootings.

We see Kanye go to various record labels to present his demo tape and got rejected by every one of them. When he was eventually signed by Roc-A-Fella records by label owner —Damon Dash, it wasn’t as an artist but as a producer.

Undeterred, Kanye would become friends with a few upcoming employees at MTV, who would showcase his work to a…