It’s hard to be Ye.
When Kanye‘s popping out seminal albums like 2010’s ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’ (arguably the greatest masterpiece of not just his own career, but the modern hip-hop generation), he’s labelled a narcissistic ego-maniac. When he’s airing his more vulnerable side in 2018’s vastly under-rated ‘Ye’ (featuring the iconic ‘I hate being bi-polar, it’s awesome’ artwork), his critics clamour for a return to his radio-friendly sound, questioning the lack of commercial melodies and Chris Martin collaborations. Fast forward to 2026, and in the form of ‘Bully’, the internet is suffering from an extreme inability to separate the man (and his various controversies in recent years), from the music. The latter, is the strongest Ye showing since Kanye‘s sparkling pièce de résistance, 16 years ago.
Gone are the half-baked ideas from 2021/22’s self-pitying ‘DONDA‘ & ‘DONDA 2’, and the messy unfiltered grunge from Ye‘s collaborative projects with Kid Cudi (‘Kids See Ghosts‘) and the gothic vulgarity of ‘Vultures‘ alongside Ty Dolla Sign. What remains, feels like the rebirth of Yeezy. West treats listeners to a whistle-stop tour of his ‘best bits’, combining his classic soul samples, with the big rasping beats and brash electric guitars of 2013’s ‘Yeezus‘. The release of ‘Bully‘ not only marks West‘s first solo album in more than four years, but also comes via a brand-new label partnership with Gamma, where Ye reunited with an old friend in Larry Jackson, who worked as an executive at Apple Music in the mid-2010s. The result of this reunion casts Kanye back into his ‘MBDTF’ era, amid a return to live shows with his SoFi Stadium performance on 1st April serving as West’s first U.S. stadium shows in nearly five years.
Packing a punch from the off, Ye‘s 12th studio album ignites with the aptly-titled opener, ‘King‘, bringing that ‘Black Skinhead‘ vibe, thanks to a fuzzy bass-line, wubbing with intent and throbbing effortlessly into Bully‘s sophomore production ‘This Is a Must’, which features playful lyrical pop culture reference, ranging from Donald Trump to Amy Winehouse. At just 1:26 in length, the track is an embodiment of a uniquely feeling ‘slim’ play-length of 42:35 across the whole album, despite a somewhat-bloated trackless of 18 potential singles. By the time ‘Bully‘ reaches the tail-end of its first act, Ye has truly hit peak flow-state, reeling off a consecutive trio of ‘Punch Drunk‘ (a playful number hit with chops of children’s chorus which wouldn’t sound out of place on ‘Graduation‘), ‘All The Love (feat. Andre Troutman)‘ (a superbly slick talk-box led production soaked in gorgeous retro synths from the ‘808s & Heartbreak‘ chapter), and the irrepressible ‘Father‘ alongside Travis Scott.
The video alone for this stellar piece of artistic storytelling has already surged to 10m+ YouTube views within a few days of release, cementing a spot as one of the most unique visuals in modern music. Aliens, conspiracies, and Michael Jackson-impersonators aside, the audio matches – and even threatens to overshadow – the visual art, such is the production prowess of Ye as he pairs gospel tones with a thudding beat which drops in with both purpose and menacing intent. ‘Bully‘ isn’t flawless, though, and for every ‘Father‘, there’s still the inconsistency of a track like slick R&B ballad ‘Whatever Works‘ which ironically, doesn’t quite work in this order of tracks, providing the slow and woozy sorbet of a ‘Slow Jamz‘ feel, after the chaos of the afforementioned trio.
Bursting into the second half of ‘Bully‘, West peels back his ‘Ye‘ mask to show a snippet of the vulnerable Kanye with a beautiful tribute to his mother on ‘Mama’s Favourite‘, snipping affirmations from her voice, taken from 2022 documentary ‘jeen-yuhs‘, before launching into the surprising sample of ‘You Can’t Hurry Love‘ by The Supremes. Focusing on themes of personal growth, the track – produced by Ye and 1SRAEL, includes a second verse created with an AI deepfake filter of West‘s own voice, showing his innovative streak certainly hasn’t dwindled in the face of public opinion of his persona. It is, in fact, tough to recall a Kanye album quite so heavy on the sampling side, with ‘Sisters and Brothers’ again remarkably maximising a classic (this time, Jonah Thompson‘s ‘Get Involved‘), and ‘White Lines‘, which prominently uses a live talkbox medley of Stevie Wonder‘s 1972 cover of The Carpenters’ hit ‘Close To You‘.
Andre Troutman deserves immense praise for the refreshment his inclusion on ‘Bully’ delivers, and likewise, the addition of CeeLo Green is a masterstroke from Ye, a full 16 years after the pair were competing in Billboard charts for a number #1 position shared by Ye‘s ‘Power‘ and CeeLo‘s ‘Forget You‘ in Autumn 2010. Bringing a real Western feel to the album lead track ‘Bully‘, Green‘s domineering vocal is underpinned by the haunting sounds of saloon doors swinging open in a score which would feel right at home in Ryan Coogler‘s ‘Sinners‘ and is inter-pierced by a cruel laugh which sounds akin to the classic catchphrase of Nelson Muntz in The Simpsons.
Dig to the core of ‘Bully‘ and opinion will be, rightly, split. In one camp, the scathing reviews of certain critics, who condemn Ye‘s “Cheap hit of retro-Kanye, custom-designed to please the diehards exhausted by his noxious antics” in reviews which spend 90% of paragraph space referring to West the person (Nazi references included), whilst the internet (and social media in general) is unanimous in the opinion that this ‘cheap hit’ is a welcome return to form for a rejuvenated being who is now finally finding his own soul once again following the devastation of his divorce (‘Damn‘ feels like an ode to Kim as he ushers the line, “Baby did you laugh today? I gave it all I had… At least I gave you that”). Make no mistake about it, ‘Bully‘ doesn’t quite possess the same gloss or raw authenticity as ‘The College Dropout’ and ‘Late Registration’, nor is it a 100% hit rate like the phenomenal freak of ‘MBDTF’ where literally every production on the track-list was as near to perfection as modern hip-hop fans are ever likely to encounter.
‘Bully’ has weak moments; The soothing lullaby of ‘Highs & Lows’, or the reflective nature of ‘Beauty & The Beast’ feel diluted, but for every wistful melody on ‘Bully‘, there’s also the experimental Latin-dance approach of Hispanic number ‘The Last Breath‘ with Peso Plum, the sharp-lyricism of ‘Preacher Man‘ (“The only G.O.A.T, the genius one!“) and the emotive feel of album outro ‘This One Here‘. Ye, the man, will continue to antagonise based on the history of his own remarks (his 2025 post on X: ‘My d**k too long for trans p***y’ has resulted in a blue backlash), but Ye the musician has not only just dropped his finest work since ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy‘… But potentially, as he also did in 2010…
The Album of the Year.
‘Bully’ is out now, on all streaming platforms.