So I watched it. I don't want to give away any spoilers, but it's going to be, I think, a three-part trilogy. I enjoyed the first installment. It covered Kanye from his move to New York up through to his signing with Roc-A-Fella Records. I've seen some of the footage from the A&E documentary about "Jesus Walks" but this was entirely new.
It's uncomfortable in spots, and not because he's a train wreck or anything. In fact, he seems like a normal ambitious, young dude thrust into a behind-the-scenes spotlight when what he really wants is to be a headliner, to break it big. You can see where Kanye's confidence in himself is blunted by the hip hop game and his scraping to get signed as a rapper. You can see when he gets animated that he really has something to say about his career, where it's going, and why he should be the next big thing in hip hop.
It's interesting. It may not be everybody's cup of tea, but I'm a Kanye enthusiast at heart and remember College Dropout really well. I can remember when it was finished, how I'd purchased a copy before its release at a place called The Village in New Britain, a trip of an hour or so I made to get it. (The "Through The Wire" video was in rotation at BET before the album came out and I used to watch Rap City every day.) I was looking forward to the album and decided to give bootlegs a try. They had files off of the internet and were selling it. This was before I was into music pirating and our house didn't have a LAN connection yet because we were so far out in the woods and running cable was tough. I remember what a breath of fresh air it was. There were barely any weak tracks! Even the send-off track, which went on for about eleven minutes or so, was brilliant.
Anyway, enough about me. It's something worth watching if you're a Kanye completist. There's nothing really that new. And you have to want to be in it for the next three hours or so, I'd imagine. It's not hagiography, either, though some of the dramatic music swells let you know the editing room is on his side. There are guest appearances by a bunch of rappers, with Mos Def, Talib Kweli, and Scarface among the most notable. The impromptu session that Kanye does with Mos Def where they do "Two Words" a cappella backstage at a New York show featuring Talib is awesome. It would have been interesting if Kanye had signed with Rawkus instead of Roc-A-Fella because Rawkus went belly up within the year or two after College Dropout. But the A&R man from Rawkus has Kanye and his future nailed. If only Rawkus management had listened to its own A&R guy, hip hop would have been entirely different. Or Kanye'd be broke. You'll know the segment when you see it.
Cool stuff.
