The documentary that shows how Kanye West’s fall predicted the age of mental decay

Of course Ye, born Kanye Westwas a friend of Charlie Kirkthe late conservative podcaster and activist whose murder last week triggered a virulent blood headquarters on the right. There he is, in the middle of In while Name? (In the name of whom?), the extensive, if not overwhelming, documentary of the director Nico Ballesteroswhich had unrestricted access to YE Over the course of six years, accompanying his descent until he became the marginal and conspiracy figure he is today. Kirk appears smiling with the genuine excitement of a fan while interviewing YE about its turn to conservative politics. This in 2018, shortly after the first visit of Kanye to the White House of Trumpright in the middle of your cap phase Widen.

On the surface, this makes In the name of whom? a convincing time capsule that leads us back to the consequences of the first election of Trump. Before covid and before conversations about disenchanted young people turning to the Republicans in 2024. Chatgpt and the delusions of Iaand the beats of the Ice taking innocent civilians in a national surveillance network. But the film is not intended to offer much in terms of new perceptions about the YE Towards the right-wing provocation, just waving to the known forces that may have taken it there.

The film opens with the return of YE Chicago (and a short promise of never leaving his hometown) while he visits his childhood home, where he was raised by his mother Donda Westwho died in 2007, two years before his infamous outbreak in the VMA against Taylor Swift.

The controversy with Swift is presented as a catalyst for the Kanye modern. When he returned to VMA in 2010 to perform “Runaway”of his masterpiece My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasythe behind -the -scenes images have the feeling of being in the locker room after a championship. Rihanna It is there, in flesh and bone, congratulating it. Shortly thereafter, he is cutting a cake in the shape of his iconic sneakers with the Nike while your then-parcede, Amber Roseapplauds him. In fact, sneakers would transform Kanye in king. Your collaboration with Adidaslaunched shortly after a creative separation with the Nikesupposedly would make him billionaire. This, before he explodes everything.

We hear the words “mental health” throughout the movie, as whispers of a ghost out of the scene. YE has been publicly fought with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, and although its various periods without medication have been well documented by the press (mainly by TMZ), here we witness distressing episodes that could awaken sympathy YE It was not so uncompromising on what submits the people around you.

There is a disturbing trip to Uganda, where he explodes with an assistant who is apparently trying to avoid an international incident. YE It turns into a blink of an eye, visibly disconnected from reality for a moment. These rabies attacks are received with uncomfortable and sinister silence while tension boils under the surface. They had been left in the remote helicopter location, presumably at the expense of Kanye. They were actually stuck there with him.

We see intimate moments in the house of Kardashians; He explodes with Kris Jennerwhile the family of his then-nongers begs him to take the medicines again. In these moments without varnish, we have a view of the level of volatility that surrounds YEAlthough it never gets to the point of showing something really revealing. Watch anything that YE It has produced publicly in the last six years would lead you precisely to the conclusion that this is how things should be behind the cameras.

These moments, however, humanize some of the struggles of YE. Your own feeling of being stuck is almost palpable in your facial expression. A painful and investigative look that seems to aim everywhere at the same time. There is, of course, a genius behind all this madness. For credit Ballesteroswe are not here to idolize an artist overloaded by his own genius.

As the movie progresses, it’s easy to get lost in your cross, how to scour the camera’s camera roll. It works as a remarkable view of the banality of celebrity life. Most of the time, YE He is alone in a car, hoping to be led to a brief encounter with some other famous person, where they philosophize nothing for a moment and follow their paths, again driven in a car.

In the end, it is the whole celebrity apparatus that Kanye desperately wants to escape – the same apparatus that puts it in the room with architects and artists from world class, as James Turrellwhose impressive project Roden Cater (for which YE Donated $ 10 million), results in some of the most striking images of the movie. The project of Turrell It was a central part of the YE 2019, Jesus is Kingpart of its turn to the ecclesiastical.

The series Sunday service of YE It is portrayed with impressive details in the Ballesterosmaking you appreciate what could be considered a less consequent moment in your career. It is in your religious fervor that YE It seems to find more clarity, although happiness is short duration, as it displays an almost magnetic attraction for controversy.

In the name of whom? It can function as a long critique of the media in the age of social networks. Throughout the movie, YE Battle against the invisible monsters and out of the scene of the comments and users of the Twitter that disagree with him. With the retrospective of watching the movie in the present, it is clear as many of the worst impulses of YE were encouraged by the instant gratification of our online reactions.

At the end of the movie, we have an enlarged image of that disastrous controversy of the T -shirt “White Lives Matter“That, in the uncontrolled 2025 world, somehow seems picturesque. It’s not even the worst thing you can find in a T -shirt today. Of course. Candace Owens It is there, in fact wearing the shirt that would trigger a series of attacks from YE that would almost lose it all.

The film does not take long in the subsequent anti -Semitic delusions of YEchoosing to focus on your response to the negative reaction. Yet, what we should think of the fact that, despite all the controversy, YE Do you keep performing worldwide? That your mark YzyAlthough at some point you have marketed a t -shirt with a literal swastika, keep resisting?

Much of your rhetoric has already entered the mainstream. Owens It is a known name, together with Kirkwhich is currently being defined in real time by the American stablishment. In the name of whom? approaches an exploration of YE And as all its contradictions fit the culture in which we live, but before we reach anywhere coherent, which may say everything.

This article was originally published by Rolling Stone USA by Jeff Ihaza on September 17, 2025, and can be checked here.

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• Charlie Kirk

• Kanye West

• Nico Ballesteros

• YE