The black SUV rolls towards the White Home, carrying Kanye West to a gathering with President Trump that’s already destined to grow to be a media circus. Within the backseat, carrying a purple MAGA cap pulled low, West leans into his cellphone, phrases tumbling out in a torrent to Trump’s son-in-law and advisor Jared Kushner.
“I have to go within the precise means {that a} international dignitary would go,” he insists. “I’m not going to step outdoors and put my life at risk. I put my life at risk by carrying the hat and I have to be liked and revered as such. As a result of there may very well be somebody on the market that may very well be attempting to take a shot at me. There’s individuals who probably need to kill me for carrying this hat. If I get killed for carrying the hat in entrance of the White Home, you’re not going to win any midterms.”
Beside him sits Nico Ballesteros, an adolescent from Orange County, digital camera in hand, worn down by months of near-constant filming and preventing to maintain his eyes open.
To the general public, the October 2018 White Home go to was a surreal collision of politics and superstar. West — who as soon as blasted George W. Bush for not caring about Black folks, and who now goes by Ye — delivered a rambling, live-streamed 10-minute monologue that veered from hydrogen-powered planes to “male vitality” to his personal bipolar dysfunction, one which was immediately lampooned on late-night TV, parsed on cable information and dissected throughout social media.
For Ballesteros, the SUV journey that morning was simply one other second in a blur of fixed journey and filming. Within the years that adopted, he continued to shadow Ye throughout continents — Asia, Europe, Africa and again — by means of resorts, non-public jets, studios, arenas, trend reveals and household fights, his digital camera at all times recording. By the point he lastly stepped away in late 2022, he had amassed greater than 3,000 hours of footage, now formed into his debut movie, “In Whose Identify?,” an unbiased documentary opening Sept. 19 on greater than a thousand screens.
“I might movie 15, 18 hours typically, and the remainder of these hours I used to be in transit,” says Ballesteros, now 26, seated at a nook desk on the Chateau Marmont. Lanky and soft-spoken, he carries a mixture of gravity and nerves — this being the primary interview of his life — as he recollects six years shadowing one of the crucial well-known males on this planet. “There was a lot lack of sleep that I wasn’t at all times consciously fascinated by what was occurring. My wrist can be collapsing with the digital camera in my hand and I’d should jolt myself again. From the White Home, we actually went straight to Uganda.”
Not like most superstar portraits, “In Whose Identify?” has no shiny packaging, no speaking heads and, most unusually, no enter from its topic. What emerges is an unvarnished chronicle: flashes of imaginative and prescient and vulnerability, spectacle and self-destruction, all captured by means of the lens of a younger cameraman embedded in Ye’s orbit. It drops viewers right into a interval when the rapper and trend mogul pinballed between euphoric bursts of creativity and really public collapse — a stretch that value him his marriage to Kim Kardashian, his billion-dollar company partnerships and far of his cultural standing.
As soon as a cultural lodestar, Ye now occupies a much more polarizing place: embraced by a loyal fringe, shunned by former collaborators and largely exiled from mainstream music and trend. In February, he reignited international outrage by retracting a previous 2023 apology for his antisemitic remarks and launching into an hours-long tirade on social media — declaring he was a Nazi, professing his love for Adolf Hitler and insisting, “I’m by no means apologizing for my Jewish feedback.” In Could, he launched a single titled “Heil Hitler” on SoundCloud, complaining on X that the tune had been “banned by all digital streaming platforms.” Weeks later, he claimed on X that he was “accomplished with antisemitism,” writing, “I like all folks. God forgive me for the ache I’ve prompted.”
It’s towards that backdrop that “In Whose Identify?” arrives, however Ballesteros stresses he by no means got down to make a take-down. “I didn’t make this to inform a narrative of descent or unraveling,” he says. “I made it to inform a stupendous, deep story of an American determine. We dwell in such a headline-based society, so I consider that is the physique textual content beneath these headlines. I’m not attempting to steer anybody. I would like it to be like a Rorschach check.”
Ye has no artistic or monetary stake within the movie. Ballesteros, by no means on his topic’s payroll, retained possession of the footage — a outstanding truth given how fiercely Ye has fought to regulate his personal picture. But Ye has tacitly given it his blessing: After watching the completed lower, he texted Ballesteros, “That doc was very deep. It was like being useless and looking out again on my life.” (Representatives for West didn’t reply to a request for remark for this text.)
“I used to be there as a journalist, documenting,” Ballesteros says. “It by no means actually broke the fourth wall for me. I had a profound sense of empathy and he was at all times well mannered to me — even a form of mentor, no less than creatively.”
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Instances)
Ballesteros grew up in Orange County with a digital camera virtually at all times in his hand, much less out of Hollywood ambitions than a means of creating sense of the world. A lower-middle-class little one of divorce, he earned a spot at 13 within the movie program on the Orange County Faculty of the Arts, a public constitution college in Santa Ana for artistically inclined college students. By then, he was already treating filming like a day by day apply. A documentary class in highschool proved transformative. “That class was life-changing for me,” he says, his dialog dotted with references that vary from Andrei Tarkovsky and Hunter S. Thompson to Vice movies and YouTube creators. “It pulled me into storytelling rooted in actuality. I fell in love with it.”
Stressed and curious, with the brazen drive of youth, he started chasing topics wherever he may — cold-emailing Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, working with a South African artist related to Nelson Mandela’s struggle for freedom, taking the prepare to Los Angeles at age 15 to hunt for materials. As Ballesteros’ consideration shifted towards trend, hip-hop and the codes of youth tradition, a 2016 screening of West’s “Lifetime of Pablo” occasion at Madison Sq. Backyard — half listening celebration, half runway present, live-streamed to theaters worldwide — hit him like a revelation.
“It was a calling,” he says. “I used to be like, ‘That is the world I need to go into and make a documentary on.’”
From there, he embedded himself within the trend and music worlds Ye drew from, directing music movies and capturing for manufacturers like Off-White till, when Ye’s longtime documentarian left, he was a pure match to step in. At first he was simply one other physique behind a digital camera, capturing the occasional occasion. However quickly he was invited into Ye’s day-to-day orbit, following him into places of work, studios and past.
“I considered it as a ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Manufacturing unit’ second — I received the golden ticket,” he says. “It was like getting into Andy Warhol’s Manufacturing unit. It was an schooling: Let me see how he talks to [director] Spike Jonze, how artistic concepts really come to life.” That curiosity, he believes, was what West picked up on. “He informed me, ‘Once you movie, you’re not simply documenting, you’re additionally understanding what it may be.’ That’s after we began to speak.”
The stakes shortly turned clear. When West was hospitalized in late 2016 for exhaustion and what was termed a “psychiatric emergency,” hours after canceling the rest of his tour, Ballesteros sensed the gravity of what he was getting into. “I used to be like, oh, that is far more deep,” he recollects.
It additionally raised an uncomfortable query for a first-time filmmaker: What are the ethics of turning such vulnerability into artwork or taking advantage of somebody’s psychological well being struggles? From the outset, although, Ballesteros says West knew he meant to make a documentary and sometimes framed it round his psychological state. Considered one of their earliest connections was a shared curiosity in Freud and Jung, giving Ballesteros the sense the movie would at all times be as a lot a psychological excavation as a chronicle.
“When he was assembly with Pharrell, he mentioned, ‘This documentary is about psychological well being,’” he recollects. “That was like the primary week or so of me filming contained in the workplace. So I used to be very conscious of that being a component. I knew that was what I used to be signing up for.”
Whereas the last word function of the footage was not totally outlined, West emphasised that every part was truthful sport. “One time he went to the dentist to get his tooth cleaned and I clearly didn’t go in — I used to be simply within the automobile,” Ballesteros says. “His safety got here out to get me and I am going in, and he’s like, ‘Hey, why’d you cease recording?’ I used to be like, ‘Oh, I assumed you needed privateness.’ He’s like, ‘No. By no means cease recording except I let you know to.’”
The occasional instances West spoke instantly in regards to the movie had been typically in shorthand, referencing motion pictures like “The Aviator” and “There Will Be Blood,” portraits of males whose genius curdles into obsession and insanity. It was a glimpse of how he appeared to border his personal story. All through, Ballesteros says, Ye pressed the necessity to “present all the perimeters of who we’re, each the darkish and the sunshine.”
Ye shares a second with daughter North in a scene from “In Whose Identify?”
(AMSI Leisure)
“In Whose Identify?” doesn’t flinch from the darker turns. Ye is seen proclaiming himself free after going off his treatment, solely to spiral into rants about conspiracies towards him. He describes sleeping in a bulletproof vest, rails towards associates that he fears try to emasculate him and lashes out with bursts of rage and paranoia that go away these round him — together with then-wife Kardashian and her mom Kris Jenner — visibly shaken. Ye typically returns to the language of “thoughts management” and slavery, satisfied that medical doctors, firms, even members of his circle are working to direct his life.
Together with quieter moments, like a reflective go to to his childhood dwelling in Chicago, the digital camera additionally catches him repeatedly clashing with Kardashian over his habits. “I’ve been crying all day — it’s simply this unhealthy dream that’s not ending,” she tells him in a single scene after his White Home go to. “I’m not about burning bridges with firms. You’re going to get up someday and also you’re going to don’t have anything.” He snaps again: “By no means inform me I’m going get up someday and don’t have anything. By no means put that into the universe.” (Representatives for Kardashian didn’t reply to a request for remark.)
Alongside Ye’s bursts of artistic and religious inspiration — from a sweeping plan to construct an ecologically sustainable metropolis in Wyoming to his gospel-infused Sunday Service performances that drew 1000’s — the movie tracks the controversies that torched his profession. The Paris runway present the place he despatched out fashions in “White Lives Matter” shirts. The late-night tweet promising to go “dying con 3 on Jewish folks.” The interviews that adopted, laced with antisemitic tropes about Jewish management of media and cash.
“I can actually say antisemitic s— and Adidas can’t drop me,” he’s seen boasting. Not lengthy after, Adidas did precisely that, erasing his billionaire standing and far of his cultural standing.
By the autumn of 2022, Ye’s empire was in tatters: Adidas lower ties, different company companions adopted, CAA dropped him as a consumer and his marriage ended. The fallout is plain — and ongoing — however Ballesteros is cautious to separate his movie from West’s phrases and actions. “I don’t help antisemitism, clearly, or hate speech,” he says quietly however firmly. “He and I don’t share the identical views…. We’re human. That’s actually the place I’m at. He’s an individual — he’s a human.”
Kim Kardashian, middle, in an emotional confrontation with Ye in “In Whose Identify?”
(AMSI Leisure)
After stepping away from Ye’s world, Ballesteros was left with 1000’s of hours of footage and no clear plan for what to do with it. In Costa Rica in 2023, he tried to decompress whereas sifting by means of the mountain of fabric. In search of a backer, the untested filmmaker turned to Simran A. Singh, a veteran music lawyer who had shifted into producing, together with the upcoming Netflix documentary “Selena y Los Dinos,” which premiered at this 12 months’s Sundance and attracts on never-before-seen footage from the late singer’s household archive.
At first, Singh was hesitant to become involved. Netflix had solely lately launched “Jeen-yuhs,” a sprawling three-part 2022 chronicle of West’s rise, and Ye’s current public habits made the prospect even more durable to abdomen. “Truthfully, I used to be reluctant — one other movie about Ye?” Singh says. “Particularly when he was saying plenty of antisemitic remarks. Considered one of my companions is Jewish and I’ve plenty of shut mates who’re Jewish, and I might by no means need anybody to suppose I stood behind that.”
What modified his thoughts, Singh mentioned, was seeing the fabric itself. “What I noticed was uncooked, unfiltered entry you virtually by no means get with anybody of this stature,” he says. “And after I met Nico, I noticed what it may very well be. I actually consider he might be the subsequent massive director of his technology.”
Singh spoke with a number of distributors and platforms, however many had been cautious of potential backlash. That hesitation pushed him towards releasing the movie independently. “In full transparency, we’re self-distributing this below my banner,” he says. “I didn’t need to take care of company paperwork and enhancing that might lose the integrity of the movie. We’re David versus Goliath right here. My spouse is an EP as nicely, and we’re extraordinarily bullish. We consider it’s meant to be seen in group and to impress dialog.”
The movie’s title factors to the larger questions Ballesteros hopes it raises. With its spiritual overtones, “In Whose Identify?” nods to the trimmings of religion that always surrounded West but in addition asks one thing broader about authorship and accountability. “It’s posing the query: Who’re we serving and why?” he says.
Ye chats with Elon Musk in a scene from “In Whose Identify?”
(AMSI Leisure)
On the Chateau Marmont, Ballesteros blends right into a nook desk in a leather-based jacket, nursing an iced Americano, wanting youthful than his age and extra reserved than one may count on from somebody who spent six years shadowing Ye’s each transfer. For him, the movie’s launch is each an ending and a starting. He’s growing documentary and narrative characteristic initiatives, although he’s maintaining the small print below wraps.
“I need to preserve refining the pipeline for documentary filmmaking and preserve innovating within the house,” he says. “However I additionally need to transfer into scripted work — movies that take care of themes of energy and perhaps the American dream as a by means of line.”
For six years, Ballesteros lived inside what he calls Ye’s “actuality distortion area,” a world the place entry, consideration, wealth and creativity bent the principles of bizarre life. Stepping again into his personal world was sure to really feel jarring.
“Seventy to ninety % of my life all through these years was with him,” he says. “Once I wasn’t with him, it was disorienting. I simply felt the burden shift after I was in that world versus out of that world.”
The dissonance lingers even now. Requested if he’s nonetheless a fan of Ye’s work — if he can separate the artwork from the artist after witnessing a lot turmoil up shut — Ballesteros pauses earlier than selecting his phrases rigorously. “I’m digesting that,” he says. “I’ve given a lot to this mission from a cultural lens, from a topic lens, I’m simply not centered a lot on his music. However I feel he clearly could be very proficient, and the phrase ‘genius’ — I feel we may positively attribute that to the scope of a few of his artistic endeavors. Indisputably.”
He stresses that, even at Ye’s lowest factors, he by no means felt personally consumed by the chaos.
“I at all times felt like I used to be there as a journalist, documenting,” he says. “It by no means actually broke the fourth wall for me. I had a profound sense of empathy but it surely was one thing that was separate from me. And he was at all times very well mannered to me — even like a mentor, when it comes to creativity.”
Ballesteros has come to see the mission by means of the lens of one other cultural determine well-known for bending actuality to his will.
“Like Steve Jobs mentioned, you may’t join the dots wanting ahead,” he says. “You possibly can solely join them wanting backward.”
