Kanye West: Former Roc-A-Fella employee offers context to viral Jeen-Yuhs clip

Fans were moved by footage of a young West trying to get signed to Jay-Z’s record label

A former employee of Roc-A-Fella has explained the context behind a viral clip from Netflix’s Kanye West documentary, Jeen-Yuhs.

The streaming service released the first part of the Coodie & Chike-directed trilogy, which offers an in-depth look at the rapper’s rise to fame.

Fans have been particularly moved by an early scene that shows a young West, who legally change his name to Ye last year, wandering the corridors of Jay-Z’s record label in search of people to play his music to.

At one point, he removes his retainer in order to rap along to the music. In another office, he plays future hit “All Falls Down” while a distracted executive assistant talks on the phone.

Many fans have expressed astonishment at the way everyone seems to ignore West’s music, which would later appear on his critically acclaimed 2004 debut, The College Dropout.

“So crazy how Kanye West played ‘All Falls Down’ and they didn’t realise how big of a hit it was going to be,” one fan tweeted. “Jeen-Yuhs was great can’t wait for the other parts.”

Wayne “Wayno” Clark, formerly an A&R assistant at Roc-A-Fella and now VP of A&R at Quality Control, has now offered some insights behind the moment.

“Lmao the context behind this is he played this song in the office and did this with a camera crew like 10x, how many times can you have a crazy reaction to something you’ve heard 10x it was kind of annoying at that point,” he wrote, in a quote-tweet of the fan’s comment.

He also pointed out that staff weren’t used to people filming in the offices, insisting that “nobody at Roc disliked Kanye”.

The next instalment of Jeen-Yuhs will be released to Netflix on 23 February.

West is also preparing to release the sequel to his 2021 album, Donda, next week.