The More You Known: Filmmakers Coodie & Chike share their story and how they gained “Creative Control”
The world is about to get an intimate look at the life of Kanye West in a way they never have before. Filmmakers Clarence “Coodie” Simmons and Chike Ozah, known to the world as Coodie & Chike, have been working on jeen-yuhs for more than two decades. The three-part docuseries, which features hours of previously unseen footage of the rapper/producer/fashion designer from the last 20+ years, premiered January 23rd at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival. Netflix will release jeen-yuhs to stream February 16th, and it will have a limited theatrical run on February 10th.
Coodie & Chike first met in New York City while working at MTV. They made their directorial debut with Kanye’s 2004 video for “Through the Wire,” and have made music videos for Erykah Badu, Mos Def, Pitbull, and others. The duo also made a documentary on former NBA star Stephon Marbury as well as the critically acclaimed ESPN 30 for 30 Benji, which examined the 1984 murder of Chicago high school basketball phenom Ben Wilson and its effect on Coodie’s native city. Nearly 20 years later after their first Kanye video, they dropped the first look at jeen-yuhs — featuring footage from 2002 of Kanye rapping “Two Words” while hanging out with Mos Def.
Known recently welcomed Coodie & Chike to our New York office to chat with our Chairman & CEO Kern Schireson about their craft and the jeen-yuhs project. Kern and Known President Ross Martin are among the co-executive producers of the series. Here are some edited excerpts from the lively and moving conversation about filmmaking, fame, and what the future holds.
How their 20-year collaboration started
Coodie: I’d seen Kanye at a young age, and I knew that he was something to document. He was this producer in Chicago, who was running around selling cheap beats to different artists. I’d seen something dynamic about him, I knew this dude was a star. I’d seen him perform with his rap group, The Go Getters, and I started documenting him. When Kanye moved to New York, I said, “Okay, I’ve got to move to New York.” MTV knew I had all this footage, so they brought me in. The producer at the time, Yasmine, then said, “I’m going to introduce you to some black people at MTV,” and that’s when we met.
Chike: Coodie had met my roommate, and they had been hanging out for a while. My roommate is very much an introvert, so I was like, “If somebody can get him out this much, then he’s got to be a really cool person.” Then we started hanging out in the streets of New York for like an entire year. And I remember vividly, he was at my apartment one day and he showed me this show called Channel Zero, which was a public access show he’d been filming in Chicago, and it blew my mind. It was just like YouTube before YouTube. It all made sense in some storytelling capacity, but on top of that, the way he was shooting it was very impressive to me too. Coodie had a very unique way of capturing rawness, but it was still stylized. So when I got the call from Coodie saying “Music video. Kanye.” I was sold.
On the impact of their documentary Benji
Coodie: After “Through the Wire,” we were on MTV and all the different countdowns. Then Benji’s brother contacted us. He said, “Man, I want to do a movie about my brother, and I want you all to do it.” So we started putting together an actual feature film for Benji first. But as first-time directors, we just never could get it right, so it just went to nothing for like seven years.
When Benji got shot and killed, the city just went quiet. Martin Luther King once said that he’d never seen mobs as hateful as he’d seen in Chicago. So we were dealing with that. We were dealing with the gangs. I couldn’t go out in my neighborhood because of a gang. I couldn’t go across the tracks, because it was the white families on that side.
When Benji died, I felt like I could go anywhere. I could walk anywhere in Chicago with everybody, because it was a certain peace.
Soon after his death, we hear about Keith Clinkscales, who was the head of content at ESPN, and [sports documentary series] 30 for 30. And it just so happened we had an online network called Creative Control, and he wanted to see what we were doing. I started telling him my story; coming from Chicago, trying to sneak in and see Benji, and let him know the dynamics of Chicago, and he green lit it just like that.
We were like, “We’re going to make this documentary for the killers. We’re going to make them cry like we were crying that day.” And I felt sorry for the regular people that were watching Benji. Because I was like, “We didn’t do it for y’all.” People were like, “I couldn’t take it. I’m only going to watch it once.” It worked out. I think when Benji died, the crime rate went down tremendously.
On filming Kanye West for 21 years
Coodie: After “Through the Wire,” we became “Coodie & Chike.” We’re the director team. We’re going to do everything together. We could have done the documentary in 2006, but Kanye was like, “I’m not ready for the world to see that side of me.” So we just kept moving, and I had the footage. Everytime Kanye did something like the Taylor Swift [incident], I was like, “Oh, man Why’d you do that?” But then I was like, “Oh, but my footage is going to be more valuable with the stuff that he was doing,” so it was double-sided. But when you think about it, Kanye’s a genius, so he might have known the same thing.
Chike: I think it speaks a lot about Coodie. It takes a special person to hold onto this [footage] and be okay if it never came out, and not rush to try to find the right time. I think Coodie’s one of the most patient people I’ve ever met. When he feels something from the universe, from God, he just follows it. He doesn’t know where it’s going to take him, but he’s not scared to follow it.
On seeing a new side of Kanye
Chike: We’re not trying to position Kanye in a way to make you like him or dislike him. This just brings more context to who he is as a person, to inform your decision on where you sit with him. He’s a very complex person. I don’t think we empathize enough with celebrities, although we’re very much responsible for their psychology. We’re not on a stage in front of 30 million people clinging onto their every word. We create these icons to a degree. This [film] shows certain aspects like his accident, his mother passing away, these things that factor more into his state than we may think.
On what’s next
Chike: We had a network that we launched years ago called Creative Control. It was an online TV network populated with content around art, culture, music, action. I feel like we’re always trying to redefine the perception of what black content looks like, and that it can be very progressive. The whole point of that is so that other people can see themselves within our work, especially kids from the inner city. We’re trying to use our influence and our platform to bring new opportunities back to these communities that we came up in and really create sustainable resources. That way we can start touching the kids when they’re young and make an impression on them. So if they stick with the program, when they get older, they’ll actually have a space to create.
