YE, the artist formally known as Kanye West, surprised everyone on Friday when he appeared at the screening of the first episode of the upcoming docuseries jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy.
According to Variety, the 44-year-old rapper and producer showed up at Los Angeles restaurant Mother Wolf about 15 minutes before the screening was due to start to a warm reception, then took a seat in the front corner of the room next to DaBaby.
The likes of Usher, Roddy Rich, Offset and some 300 other attendees were present and might have been caught off guard when Ye appeared after he was denied editing access to the docuseries by directors Coodie and Chike prior to its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January.
“I’m going to say this kindly for the last time,” West said at the time. “I must get final edit and approval on this doc before it releases on Netflix. Open the edit room immediately so I can be in charge of my own image.”
But the directors stood firm and Ye eventually backed off with his request, leaving Coodie and Chike to finish the project themselves using hundreds of hours of footage from the last 21 years of Ye’s life.
Whatever beef there was before had seemingly gone as the rapper embraced the team behind the documentary after the screening and took to the stage to say a few words.
“When you have people next to you that believe in you and a community that sticks together, that’s the way that we can protect each other,” West said after Coodie offered him the mic. “Hollywood a lot of times — like I got my man DaBaby right here — people try to cancel us and we all run away from each other and scatter or we be not talking to each other, not communicating.”
Ye went on to mention Kobe Bryant in his speech and addressed racial inequality, before claiming that Apple exec Larry Jackson offered him $100 million to release Donda on their streaming service
“I never got a meeting with Tim Cook,” West said. “So, it ain’t about the money. It’s about our power and our respect collectively.”
Look out for the first episode of Jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy landing on Netflix next week on February 16. Watch the most recent trailer for the docuseries below: