jeen-yuhs (part 2)

jeen-yuhs (part 2)

Part 2 pretty much begins with Kanye getting into a car accident in LA almost directly after being signed to Roc-a-Fella records. The accident breaks his jaw in multiple locations and breaks whatever interest Roc-a-Fella had in releasing his album.

…so he keeps making beats to pay the bills and scampers to record The College Dropout without any institutional support, using borrowed studio time from friends and colleagues.

There’s a scene of them going into MTV after hours to work on the equipment there to produce the video for “Through the Wire” which Kanye pays for out of pocket.

Kanye forgoes recommended surgery in order to keep pushing to take advantage of this make-it-or-break-it moment.

He self-releases the video for “Through the Wire,” and it blows up and tops the MTV charts for weeks. Suddenly, Roc-a-Fella is interested again, and we end this chapter with him winning a Grammy.

Watching the “Through the Wire” video again, I can see how the first two parts of jeen-yuhs are effectively a three-hour version of what the video distilled into three minutes. The fly-on-the-wall style continues to be remarkable, showing recording sessions, initial reactions, etc. to what would ultimately become an album that has sold over four million copies in the United States alone. It’s not hard to see that Kanye made this a reality through a kind of confident determination that none of the many obstacles in his path could deter.

I am very curious to see what kind of access and footage awaits in part 3 once Kanye has reached a kind of superstar level of success.