BBC announces new Kanye West documentary and podcast series
The upcoming film will be presented by investigative journalist Mobeen Azhar
By Tom Skinner
The BBC has announced a new documentary and podcast about Kanye West.
The upcoming film, which has the working title We Need to Talk about Kanye, will be presented by investigative journalist Mobeen Azhar, who also made a doc about Britney Spears‘ fight to be released from her conservatorship, The Battle for Britney (2021).
It’ll air on BBC Two, with a broadcast date due to be confirmed in the coming weeks (via the Independent).
Speaking about the project in a statement, the BBC explained: “Unfolding against the backdrop of Ye’s 2024 election campaign, and at a time when his behaviour has sparked outrage and a re-evaluation of his place in popular culture, this one-off documentary follows Mobeen as he attempts to understand the complex journey that led Ye to become one of the most famous and creatively successful artists of his generation.
“But more recently, to condemnation and notoriety.”
Additionally, an accompanying eight-part podcast series will see a range of guests “bring an insight” into West’s life and “dig deeper into his place in culture; starting with the early stratospheric success to the condemnation of later years,” per a press release.
Ye received significant backlash last year after posting and expressing a number of antisemitic views. He was also criticised for wearing a ‘White Lives Matter’ t-shirt, a move the rapper later defended.
“The answer to why I wrote ‘White Lives Matter’ on a shirt is because they do,” West said in an interview on Fox News. “It’s the obvious thing.”
Last December, the Donda artist tweeted an image of a swastika following an interview in which he praised Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Twitter CEO Elon Musk subsequently suspended Ye’s account on the platform, saying he had “violated our rule against incitement to violence”.
West’s controversial behaviour led to him being dropped by various brands including Adidas and Balenciaga.
In early 2022, Kanye West was the subject of a three-part Netflix documentary series, Jeen-Yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy.