'Jeen-Yuhs' Directors Recall Drake Asking to Narrate Kanye West Netflix Documentary

In an appearance on the Connection Is Magic with Samson Shulman podcast, Jeen-Yuhs directors Coodie Simmons and Chike Ozah broke down how Drake approached them about narrating the Netflix Kanye West documentary.

"It was Drake that seen it, they was sending out teasers to certain people and Drake got one," explained Simmons, who ultimately narrated the documentary himself. "When he seen it, he was like, 'Kanye ask Coodie if I can narrate? It would be big.'"

After Drizzy asked Ye about narrating Jeen-Yuhs, Simmons said what followed was "the fasted text chain ever." Simmons replied to both of the artists, who had only just reconciled at this point, and told them it "wouldn't be a great idea" because of various reasons.

"Me and Drake was going back-and-forth about it," he continued. "Like, 'Man, you know, I just want to be a part of [it]. ... We're doing this for the dreamers, it ain't about me and Kanye!' ... And then Kanye hit [back], 'Drake, main narration.'" Ye famously took a screenshot of the conversation and asked social media if he should let Drake narrate the documentary, because, as he put it, he wanted to "let the public decide."

Kanye later deleted the tweet and Instagram post due to negative feedback.

"When we did the premiere, and Kanye seen the piece, he was like, 'Man I can't believe Drake thought he could narrate this movie,'" Simmons continued. "And Drake thought he could do it in a week! He was like, 'I'll be done in a week before the movie can air.' I was like, 'You know how much writing it took to get to that point?' But, you know, he's great. Kanye's great. But we're great, too."

Drake's request to narrate Jeen-Yuhs arrived around a week before the documentary was set to premiere on Netflix, and weeks after it received its world premiere at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.