Kanye West never had a problem being candid. The rapper’s willingness to provoke, which often came bundled in a conversation about mental health, catapulted him to the top of pop culture and later, knocked him off the apex.
Antisemitism, misogyny, anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and his constant airing of family dirty laundry have plagued the Grammy winner for nearly a decade, in parallel with his flirtations with MAGA and Christian salvation. What kind of defense does West (aka Ye) deserve? What could his perspective offer now?
“In Whose Name?,” a new documentary featuring a raft of unfiltered footage inside Ye’s never-ending trials, has some clues. More than that, it gives fascinating insight into one of the wildest downfalls in entertainment history.
Here’s what we learned from the project, directed by longtime West collaborator Nico Ballesteros.
Medication and “Freedom”
Ballesteros’ movie plays like a Whac-a-Mole journey through Ye’s troubles, starting in 2018. The project’s narrative touchstone, however, is Ye’s commitment to living without medication for the bipolar disorder he’s previously disclosed. The film opens on West and his daughter North, then a toddler, as she explains her understanding of sleep. “Do you know if you fall asleep, you won’t even walk?” says the tot. “I need to stay awake, then,” he replies. This is the framework through which Ye views his mental struggles — a consistent push for “freedom,” defined by West as a life without meds.
Though well-documented on his own social media for the past 7 years, West’s mental health struggles read different when edited into a feature film. His crusade plays more urgent and less random when you see his obsession with his alarmed corporate partners in art and business – like shoemaker Adidas and music labels Sony and Universal – creep into every moment of his life.
Director Ballesteros forgoes most of the tropes found in documentaries out a desire for objectivity, he tells Variety.
“It was important to create an observational documentary and embrace cinéma vérité, not to make a participatory doc — no talking heads, no interviews. I knew even as an 18-year-old. I wanted to create something purely observational. I look at it like a Rorschach test for society, like a mirror.”
The “SNL” Subplot
Those who tracked West’s spiral into the MAGA fold — complete with “White Lives Matter” T-shirts and strategy sessions with Candace Owens — will surely remember his headline-grabbing “Saturday Night Live” appearance. Two years after Trump first won the presidency, Ye showed up to 30 Rock wearing a MAGA hat, and used the tail end of the show to rant about “mind control” and his new political alignments. “SNL” cut his speech, but the doc reveals truly chaotic behind-the-scenes action.
Former cast members Leslie Jones and Jay Pharoah are stone-faced as they ask West what is off-limits for potential sketches starring the rapper.
“I don’t have any off limits. I’m literally inside of current slavery and being like accosted by my own people to not free my mind,” West tells the comedians. “The motherfuckers that own the stadiums, go back to they last name. They owned the salve. We just more expensive now. Even if we work at NBC.”
West then goes on to say it cost him $80 million to buy back his record catalogue from his music labels, nothing that music legend Prince “couldn’t afford it. He ain’t have no shoes.”
Michael Che has a blistering confrontation with Ye, who earlier onstage — in an allusion to the “Weekend Update” anchor — criticized NBC for having “Black comedians out here making jokes about Bill Cosby.” Che gets directly in West’s face, asking why he said such “foul shit” when the cast admired and welcomed him like family. West demurs. Lindsay Shookus, a longtime talent wrangler and producer for “SNL,” immediately tries to appeal to Ballesteros behind the camera, saying “Can you not do that, please? Can you not record that? It would be awful for us.”
Perhaps most shocking and sycophantic is an appearance by Chris Rock in Ye’s dressing room after the altercation. Rock likens West to Sinéad O’Connor, who, in a 1992 “SNL” appearance, tore up a photo of Pope John Paul II to protest sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. “Nobody knows anything,” Rock tells West, embracing him.
Kim’s Suffering
West has battled Kim Kardashian, his ex-wife and co-parent of four kids, on social media and in family court for years. “In Whose Name?” could have reinforced the picture he’s painted of her as a controlling shill. The opposite is true. In its stark objectivity, the film makes Kardashian’s suffering palpable as her partner changes before her eyes (see an exclusive clip of a tense interaction between the pair at the top of this post). Tears come fast and often, as we see in a 2018 visit to Uganda. A fierce tantrum from Ye directed at Kardashian and his cousin Kim Wallace leaves her dumbstruck.
“Your personality was not like this a few years ago. It was very far and few in between,” Kardashian says. “It was not daily, in every single conversation.” Insiders familiar with West’s thinking say he’s remorseful about much of the film’s content but did not want to interfere with the final product.
Kardashian declined to provide comment for this story. Her famous family is also drawn into Ye’s tailspin. After West catches heat for a 2018 White House sit-down, he returns to Los Angeles saying he feels “emasculated in this house by my wife and Kris Jenner.”
In another high decibel screaming fit, West asks Jenner, Kim’s mother, if she feels partly responsible for the mental breakdown and hospital stay that preceded his Trump chat. “Yes, I’m saying yes,” Jenner tells him through her own tears, beside partner and reality TV star Corey Gamble “And I love you. I don’t want you to be not perfect, and I want my daughter to love you the way you want her to love you.”
Kim’s sisters – Khloe, Kourtney, Kendall and Kylie – can be glimpsed in what appears to be a wedding vow renewal from 2019. Choking back tears yet again, Kardashian tells West, “You are my husband, my best friend, my biggest believer and one true love. I promise — in front of our family and friends and before God — that I will be a supportive and loving wife for all time,” Kardashian says.
Kardashian filed for divorce from West in 2022.
The Names
Given West’s once icon status, “In Whose Name?” is packed with celebrities and notable artistic, political and cultural figures. Archive footage from his golden era includes interactions with Beyoncé and Jay-Z, Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, LeBron James, Anna Wintour, David Letterman, Naomi Campbell, Drake and Pharrell.
Later, around 2019, we see West sitting for a strategy session with pundit Candace Owens and the late Charlie Kirk.
“I have to show an example of a non-perfect black celeb that still wins,” West tells Owens and Kirk. “Because, if your’e a celeb and you’re Black and you’re perfect? You’re the housekeeper.”
“You’re a glorified slave,” Owens agrees, as Kirk echoes that West would appear to be “the help” in the construct the rapper establishes.
Owens then reassures West that “culture will always be upstream from politics. Whoever can control culture can control politics. You wearing a MAGA hat? It broke the internet.”