I told myself I wasn’t going to watch In Whose Name? when I first heard about it a few weeks ago. What would be the point? When Kanye West first broke out, I was one of the legion of fans touting his musical genius. The temperamental outbursts were part of the package if you were a fan. I can’t say they were endearing (well, outside of the time he declared “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people” during a Hurricane Katrina fundraiser), but that was part of the deal. Kanye always wears his heart on his sleeve, for better (early on in his career) and worse (most of the last decade). With a few flashes of the early days tossed in, In Whose Name? shows six years in the life of the artist currently known as Ye. For anyone who has paid any attention, or couldn’t help avoiding the numerous reports, most of what the documentary covers will be familiar. The perspective the doc adds is to give viewers an inside look. With precious few insights to offer, In Whose Name? exists because of one person.
I guess, technically, it’s two. Ye and the doc’s director Nico Ballesteros. Maybe the most interesting thing about the doc is that Ballesteros was 18 when he started filming the footage that would eventually become In Whose Name? He isn’t old enough to have real memories of Ye’s rise and that remove gives him an interesting position here. But nothing ever materializes out of that dynamic. The doc feels like a fly on the wall experience, with a few brief moments where Ye directly addresses Ballesteros and the camera.
The film is a breathing document of a narcissist grappling with Bipolar disorder and the unasked, but omnipresent question is to what end? It never beats the allegations that it’s a speed-run through all the headlines people likely saw on Yahoo!’s homepage over that timespan. There aren’t many insights to be gleaned here. Mostly, I’m disappointed in myself for giving into my curiosity and indulging the documentary.
For years people held up Ye as a musical genius. It’s unsurprising that the acclaim went to his head, fueling the otherworldly self-confidence he has always displayed. The problem is that Ye internalized the acclaim and came to believe that being a genius in one area means he must be a genius in all areas. At one point in the doc Ye says that by virtue of being an artist everything he does or says in an art piece. Does that make his traveling church, Sunday Service, an art piece? Or his failed run for president in 2024? Aligning himself with Donald Trump, Ben Shapiro, Candance Owens, and every other right-wing zealot that would give him a platform, was that art too? Perhaps I’m being condescending, but In Whose Name? asks viewers to give credence to a large set of unserious decisions by Ye that carry real world consequences.
There are arguments and contentious moments between Ye and others throughout the documentary, but the most compelling interaction comes backstage at the infamous Saturday Night Live episode where Ye wore his MAGA hat and went on his rant at the end of the episode. Michael Che confronts Ye, point blank asking what his deal is. There’s legitimate tension and Che doesn’t back down, only for a publicist or handler to step in and cut the conversation short. In another scene, producer Swizz Beats gives Ye a tough love talk. We see plenty of times where Ye loses his cool and is yelling at people who largely stay silent (or their responses happened outside of what we see), I don’t know if Ballesteros has more of those moments in his footage, but his film certainly would be better if there were more.
One of the running threads throughout the film that reiterates that this is little more than a self-serving project for Ye is that we are constantly hearing updates on his billionaire status and wealth. At one point Ye is introduced to a crowd as “a Christian billionaire” without a single drop of irony. The lasting impression is that Ye’s place in history is sure to be completely different from what we thought it would be when The College Dropout landed and helped change the musical landscape.
