On March 27, Kanye West released his new album, “Bully.” The rapper, who has often appeared in the media in recent years due to his scandalous statements and antics, promised to present the album in September 2024. Since then he has released some songs from the album, and in 2025 he released the short film “Bully V1”, starring his son who appears on the cover. Kanye then said that much of the record was created using artificial intelligence, but then disavowed those words. Now the album has received a great reception from critics. Although the business is not so bad – especially against the backdrop of Kanye’s creative failures in recent years. We’ll tell you how the album came to be, what it lacks to rank among the rapper’s major recordings, and, just as importantly, what is the context of the premiere, related to the artist’s public repentance after his Nazi and anti-Semitic statements and actions.
Kanye West is the most important and influential rap artist of the past 25 years. For a bigger sound, you can rework it – the 21st century. But in recent years he has turned into a disgusting and toxic figure, causing, if not disgust, then misunderstanding. This is because, having done everything in rap, he either decided that his mission was now to test the strength of moral standards, or simply wanted to turn into a meme hero, or all of the above.
The result is anti-Semitic tweets about a Jewish conspiracy, lyrics about sympathy for Hitler and the Nazis, attempts to sell clothing bearing swastikas, inappropriate jokes, including about the Holocaust, and impossible-to-quote songs. All this had its consequences: the company broke off all ties with the artist, even at the cost of significant losses, as in the case of Adidas, which killed a successful joint line of sneakers.
The fellow rappers didn’t just walk away, they quietly withdrew. This cannot be called a cancellation: you have given concerts, infrequently, but always in huge venues and in different countries. But the reputation of an elderly troll who’s not fully aware of his actions, who writes bad things, then deletes them and apologizes, then writes bad things again, has stuck with him.
This cycle stopped on January 23, 2026. Yeh bought a page in the Wall Street Journal to apologize in earnest (the post was titled “To Those I Have Hurt,” contained the phrase “I am not a Nazi, I love Jews” and asked for forgiveness for the use of Nazi symbols) — and to explain his position. The artist wrote that his current problems, scandals, and addictions are the result of brain damage he suffered in a car accident that launched his career.
We are talking about an incident that occurred two decades ago. At the time, West was a beatmaker (music composer) for another rap star, Jay-Z. It was a very well paid job with the king of the genre in his prime – could you ask for more? But Kanye wasn’t content with a place in the entourage: he saw himself as an artist. Although the initial introductions weren’t ideal: For that rap industry, West was bland, not masculine enough, not streetwise, and not dangerous.
Kanye had an unfortunate accident in 2002 and almost died. He suffered skull injuries, and doctors fixed his jaw with wire so he could not open his mouth fully. In this way, he recorded the song “Across the Wire,” which became his first hit.
More than 20 years after the accident, Yeh explained in the Wall Street Journal: The frontal lobe of the brain was damaged then, and the doctors did not conduct comprehensive tests, and the damage affected itself years later and led to the development, which was not diagnosed until 2023. So, he did not know what he was doing, don’t blame me.
It is worth noting here that Yi’s creativity has not reached its peak in recent years either. Many fans may want to forget everything he recorded in the 2020s. The solo albums “Dunda” and “Dunda 2” and joint albums “Eagles” and “Eagles 2” were pale imitations of his earlier works. Both parts of “Vultures” turned out to be messy and incomplete, with an abundance of annoying AI elements. It is not surprising that the word “bully” seems useful against this background: the low-key effect works.
Kanye has reinvented the hip-hop sound several times throughout his career. It seems that the “bully” is following his inventions. All eras of Kanye are here: “The College Dropout” he invented, auto-tuned alternative R&B in the spirit of “808s & Heartbreak” and electronic industrial rap like “Yeezus”. “All the Love” recalls Kanye’s brilliant use of Daft Punk’s robotic vocals on “Stronger.” When you listen to “Bully” you understand: you have something to remember. True, such trips “on the wave of memory” are often defined in the negative sense as. Well, yes – when asked what new ideas you have, one should raise their hands.
Maybe artificial intelligence is such an idea. I’ve been a fan of the technology and have used it on recent albums, including Bully. In an interview, he showed how he processes a rap song recorded by someone else using an AI filter, transforming the other person’s voice into Kanye’s voice. But the audience did not like it so much that before the release of “Bully” Ye X informed on the social network that “there will be no artificial intelligence in the new album.” It appears that he has overwritten the parts that were created. It is clear that the idea “AI is just a tool” now does not find understanding among the public: either it is considered a hoax, or replacing a person with a machine subconsciously scares many.
The lack of shared paths is also striking. But this was once the brand of the West. It’s not about bringing in big names for the sake of hype. Kanye’s method, which was first widely talked about while working on his major label album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, was as follows: Dozens of major rappers, beatmakers and shadow writers came to record. The creative enthusiasm and cross-pollination of ideas led to amazing results – especially in combination with the productive vision of the West, which knew how to extract the maximum benefit from the participants in such creative camps.
Now, according to Bully, there are only a few people left in the industry willing to work with the “All My N****** Are Nazis” hitmaker. “She’s alone there” He complained Once oxymeron. Yes, on the contrary, today, in the moment of reputation, but you will not find company there either. So, it seems like literally every song of his is missing a verse or two where the guest star would be.
As a result, the tracks sound like interesting sketches and demos that lack his previous range — but Kanye has released epic songs. The current one is like two minutes or less, which is very short for an epic.
However, these are hit songs: catchy, poignant and memorable. This text does not call for dissuading you from listening to the “bully”; the goal is exactly the opposite. I just want to say: We remember that it used to be different. Meanwhile, we can say: The word “bully” sounds like a neural network trained on Kanye’s best albums from 2004 to 2016: very recognizable, but not particularly innovative.