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Get a first look at new Kanye West documentary Jeen-yuhs headed to Netflix

Netflix reportedly paid $30 million for the docuseries, which has followed West, with his permission, for 20 years.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
Gael Cooper
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Netflix's big Kanye West docuseries followed the rapper for 20 years. 

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Kanye West's music isn't the only thing about him that makes headlines. In 2020, he ran for president, and recently he attended the Met Gala with estranged wife Kim Kardashian West, with both completely covered in black cloth. On Saturday, at its three-hour Tudum fan event, Netflix gave fans a sneak peek at Jeen-yuhs, a documentary about West with 20 years worth of intimate, behind-the-scenes footage from the multi-Grammy-Award-winning musician's complex personal and professional life. 

Below, watch the first-look clip of Jeen-yuhs, Netflix's unprecedented docuseries about West, featuring Kanye rapping with Yasiin Bey (previously known as Mos Def).

"Filmed over two decades, Jeen-yuhs is an intimate and revealing portrait of Kanye's experience, showcasing both his formative days trying to break through and his life today as a global brand and artist," Netflix says in a statement about the film.

According to Billboard, Netflix paid $30 million to acquire the film project, which will be released in three parts, tracing his career from his early days in Chicago to the present with never-before-seen footage. 

Filmmakers Clarence "Coodie" Simmons and Chike Ozah, known as Coodie and Chike, are well known to West. They co-directed his 2003 Through the Wire video as well as one of the three videos made for his hit 2004 song Jesus Walks.

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