MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
He's one of our most influential and infuriating creatives, winner of 24 Grammys, a tastemaker in music and fashion, formerly one-half of a celebrity power couple and also known for his antisemitic and incoherent rants about race and politics, rants and stances that have cost him millions.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JESUS WALKS")
KANYE WEST: (Rapping) Well, Mama, I know I act a fool. But I'll be gone till November. I get packs to move. I hope Jesus walks.
MARTIN: We're talking about Kanye West, now known as Ye. For six years, a young documentary filmmaker had a front row seat to hours of public and private moments in Ye's life. Now we can see what he saw in a new movie called "In Whose Name?" The filmmaker is Nico Ballesteros and he's with us now. Nico Ballesteros, welcome. Thank you so much for joining us.
NICO BALLESTEROS: Thank you for having me.
MARTIN: Yeah, I mean, you were just 18 when you started filming and following Ye.
BALLESTEROS: That's correct. Yes, ma'am. It's been nearly a decade. And, you know, it's definitely been a coming-of-age experience.
MARTIN: How did it start?
BALLESTEROS: Well, at that time, it was a renaissance period of Instagram. And around that, there were so many new roles that became actual career paths for young creatives from stylists to creative directors, to personal videographer, photographers. And it was just a role that I knew I could fill in the world and specifically within his. By the time that I got invited to come and film a few events that he was doing for his friends and family post-hospital, it was kind of just a natural progression. And from there, people were so in his orbit and world that they actually - the peripheral was nonexistent, and they didn't even recognize me.
MARTIN: So you see him in the film surrounded by, you know, heavyweights. You know, Jay-Z, Pharrell Williams, Drake, Rihanna, Chris Rock. And people are hailing him as a genius.
BALLESTEROS: It was always a revolving door of idolatry. And then in that same way, that's what he represents to so many people in the world as well. I think that's why I created this project, to understand the human beneath the idol.
MARTIN: You met him, you said, after he got out of the hospital, started working with him. He's been very open about the fact that he lives with bipolar disorder. In the film, he makes it very clear that he's refusing to take his meds. You film a number of interactions with him that are very interesting and also very disturbing, that famous trip to the White House to visit President Trump.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "IN WHOSE NAME?")
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Sir, there's Jared Kushner that wants to speak to you.
MARTIN: And you're there as he's heading to the White House. And he's demanding to be received as a visiting foreign dignitary.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "IN WHOSE NAME?")
WEST: That's the only way I'm going to go in. I have to go the exact way that a foreign dignitary would go. That's the only way I'm going to go in. Wait a second. Listen to me. I'm not going to step outside. I'm not going to put my life in danger. I put my life in danger by wearing the hat, and I need to be loved and respected as such.
MARTIN: When he's there, a lot of people thought he seems very erratic. Is he fully in control of himself? In the scene that you're filming in the car on the way there, he seems very much in control of himself. Is he being manipulative? I don't know how to describe that.
BALLESTEROS: I think in general, the most externally chaotic moments in the media were sometimes the most calm. It was a unique dynamic, for sure.
MARTIN: The other thing you see in the film, you see him screaming at his cousin. You see him screaming at his former wife, Kim Kardashian. You see him screaming at his mother-in-law. You see him screaming at his architectural team.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "IN WHOSE NAME?")
WEST: I'd rather be dead than be on medication. No one from the family has taken any responsibility for my hospital visit. But if we were to go online, that's 50% of what people say at least, or maybe no. Am I lying?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: It doesn't matter.
WEST: Am I lying? It do matter. It does matter, it does matter.
MARTIN: Nico, you were there for some very sensitive moments. You were there as a marriage was dissolving. You were there as his business empire was fraying. Was there ever a moment when it felt too sensitive for you?
BALLESTEROS: In a lot of ways growing up, when I really picked up that camera, I was going through my own turmoils, with my own family going through divorce and being an only child. So the camera always was this device that I used to go into my own world and create a barrier between my world and everyone else's. So I knew that I always had to maintain journalistic objective integrity. And I believe it was always something that he appreciated and was comforted by. There was someone that was just there watching, versus everyone constantly participating and thinking about what to say next and how to frame something and you should, or you should not. I think the stillness and the witness and the observation was actually the best thing that I as Nico could provide to those situations.
MARTIN: For people who haven't seen the film yet, there is no narration. It's entirely...
BALLESTEROS: Cinema verite, yeah.
MARTIN: Cinema verite.
BALLESTEROS: Observational.
MARTIN: It's all what you've filmed. Obviously, it's edited because you had, what, thousands of hours of tape?
BALLESTEROS: Three thousand hours.
MARTIN: Three thousand hours of tape. The viewer is very much left to decide for themselves how they feel...
BALLESTEROS: Yes.
MARTIN: ...About what you just saw.
BALLESTEROS: Absolutely.
MARTIN: So how do you feel about everything you saw?
BALLESTEROS: I feel a profound sense of empathy, not just for him, but America. I think we see - and I mean that in the broader sense, in the sense that these are difficult times. And I really feel a heaviness around all of it. And beyond that, I'm looking to see what others have to say and be a part of that conversation. My main goal in this was to provide a mirror to America that is also serving as a Rorschach test about Ye and his relationship to America and America's relationship to him.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I AM A GOD")
WEST: (Rapping) I am a god.
MARTIN: That's Nico Ballesteros. He's the director of a new documentary about Kanye West, who's now known as Ye. It's called "In Whose Name?" Nico Ballesteros, thank you so much for speaking with us.
BALLESTEROS: Thank you for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I AM A GOD")
WEST: (Rapping) I am a god even though I'm a man of God. My whole life in the hand of God, so y'all better quit playing with God. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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