At just 18 years old, aspiring filmmaker Nico Ballesteros was given the opportunity to follow one of the most famous people in the world in Ye (formerly Kanye West).
Ballesteros whittled 3,000 hours of footage from about 2018 to 2024 in West’s pocket to a two-hour documentary, In Whose Name?, which is a raw, unflinching look behind the curtain of one of music’s most mercurial, brilliant, polarizing and chaotic acts.
The documentary arrived in about 1,000 theaters across the U.S. on Friday (Sept. 19). There’s no shortage of cameos, with appearances from Kim Kardashian, Lady Gaga, LeBron James, Drake, Chris Rock, Diddy, Rihanna, Elon Musk, Pharrell, Swizz Beatz, Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens, Anna Wintour, Virgil Abloh, Playboi Carti, Marilyn Manson and Justin Bieber.
In Whose Name is spread out through a prelude — which calls back to super rare archival footage from the 2000s — and three acts, along with a brief epilogue. It’s not meant to paint West in a particular positive or negative light, but more to provide context and a look inside his last six years of turbulence.
“We don’t know if we glued together the story,” West says in the doc. “If you’re documenting every almost waking moment and sometimes sleeping moments of my life, and you don’t understand the throughline, then the world’s not going to understand the throughline. It’s just going to look crazy, or it’s going to be one antic to the next antic, the way the media words it.”
Ballesteros called the documentary “a revolving door of idolatry.” “I think that’s why I created this project, to understand the human beneath the idol,” the director added to NPR.
Fans have been asking themselves “Why, Ye?” plenty of times over the years, and the doc provides some answers as to his thinking when it comes to some of his controversial decision-making — the good, the bad and the ugly.
In Whose Name? doesn’t have a major plot line or theme surrounding West as the only thing linear really is the timeline following him, but it’s a worthwhile watch for anyone who is (or was) a fan of the 21-time Grammy Award winner.
Here are seven standout moments from In Whose Name.
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Lady Gaga & LeBron James appear in unearthed archival footage
Even the most diehard Ye fans are going to be impressed with the rare archival footage unearthed from the 2000s for the Prelude. Lady Gaga makes a cameo as she’s deep in the planning stages of her Fame Kills tour with West, which was cancelled in 2009 following Ye’s infamous stage interruption of Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards.
LeBron James and Ye tag-teamed a September 2007 episode of SNL, with the hooper playing host for the evening and West on performer duties, which came in the midst of the duo’s rise in each’s respective crafts, looking to snatch the crown.
James even called Ye the “No. 1 man in the world right now,” as the rapper came off the release of Graduation weeks earlier, while LeBron made his first NBA Finals appearance that June.
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Ye explains to Playboi Carti why he removed Pusha T from ‘Off the Grid’: ‘Black Lives Matter is worse than the devil’
Pusha T originally had a verse on a reference track to what became “Off the Grid.” While Ye was recording Donda in the Atlanta Falcons’ locker room, Playboi Carti asked him why West didn’t like Pusha’s verse. “I’d rather y’all be like, I’m killing 20 n—s, I’m f—ing this many b—s, I’m doing all this s—t, than y’all saying Black Lives Matter s—t on my s—t,” Ye responded. “Black Lives Matter is like worse than the devil to me, it’s mind control.”
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Michael Che confronts Ye backstage after 2018 ‘Saturday Night Live’
West made an explosive appearance donning a red MAGA hat on Saturday Night Live in September 2018 in support of his never-released YANDHI album. During his infamous pro-Trump rant to close the show, he called out a certain comic on SNL for talking about Bill Cosby, and that happened to be cast member Michael Che.
“You can’t be controlled by monolithic thoughts,” Ye said. “You can’t always have, every time you have a Black subject matter, like [Bill] Cosby, that you have to have a Black comedian talking about him.”
Che took issue with West’s comments and confronted him backstage following the show. “I work here. Like, come on, man. We treat everyone that come in like family, and you gonna sell us out? Like, that’s f—ked up, man,” he said. “We look up to you, we love you. What you got against us?”
Che continued to berate West: “But airing it out like that without letting us be able to reply is kind of foul. You wait until the last song and then say that foul s–t to us?… You’re a hero to us, man! We love you. Seriously, we love you. But it’s foul to do that.”
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A studio session with Drake & Lil Dicky
Drake pulled up to a Ye studio session circa early 2018, and it’s a sight to behold, with Lil Dicky also present. West kicks a freestyle that impresses the 6 God. “That verse is crazy,” the OVO rapper responded, giving Ye his props. The clip appears to be from the unreleased 500 Days in UCLA documentary that was never released by West’s camp. Months later, Kanye’s relationship with Drake soured following a Wyoming trip, which led to Pusha T’s battle with Drizzy.
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Ye’s deteriorating marriage to Kim Kardashian
The splintering of Kanye’s marriage to Kim Kardashian is apparent throughout the documentary. In 2018, it appears their union really fractured: Following West’s explosive appearance on SNL and controversial visit to the Oval Office, a weeping Kardashian attempts to plead with Ye over the phone.
“You’re losing everyone around you,” she claims. “It’s a bad dream… One day you’re going to wake up and have nothing.” Ye wasn’t having any of it. “Never put that into the universe,” he snaps back.
Another disagreement came when West publicly said he was planning to move their family back to Chicago and into his childhood home. Kardashian, caught off-guard, never took the conversation about moving out of California seriously. “We can talk about that later, and more thoroughly, but,” Kim said before being interrupted. “It ain’t no but,” West replied and stormed out of the room.
There appeared to be some time frame of reconciliation when the former power couple renewed their vows, with a backyard ceremony draped in all-white, surrounded by friends and family. However, Kardashian filed for divorce in 2021, which was finalized the following year.
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Ye snaps at Kris Jenner
While Ye’s marriage to Kim was falling apart, his relationship with family members was also reaching a breaking point. An unnerving scene in the doc found West in an argument with his mother-in-law, Kris Jenner, whom he nicknamed Kris Jong-Un in a 2020 tweet.
“Nobody in the family took responsibility for my hospital visit,” West shouted, referring to his 2016 hospitalization. A dejected Jenner replied: “I love you, and want my daughter to love you.” Kris’ boyfriend Corey Gamble attempted to intervene, which didn’t help the situation much.
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Ye doesn’t regret losing Adidas, Gap & Balenciaga Deals
October 2022 was a month Ye did irreparable damage to his reputation and bank account, while changing the course of his career. First, he unveiled the “White Lives Matter” shirt at Paris Fashion Week, which he misjudged as a troll maneuver and an attempt at “destroying labels.” The doc goes behind the scenes of the fashion show and his thinking behind the shirt, which he shared with political pundit Candace Owens.
Later in the month, West’s antisemitic “Death Con 3” tweet led to him losing lucrative business endeavors while Adidas, Balenciaga and Gap cut ties with the Chicago rapper. Looking back on the losses, West said he has no regrets. “Should I have blown up the Gap s—t? Should I have blown up the Adidas s—t? But the answer is yes,” he offered to the camera.
