Raised the bar: Kanye West got rid of AI

Vocals without artificial intelligence, a number of new or reworked compositions and confusion with the track list are the main features of Kanye West's new album. Suffering from bipolar disorder, the provocateur musician unexpectedly kept his word and released Bully (English: "bully", "bully", "bully") "into the light", however, he did it in a strange way by putting tracks on an online broadcast and canceling pre-orders on streaming services. And this is far from the only extravagance of his next work — more precisely, the reincarnation of last year's. Izvestia plunged back into West's wild world.

"Bullying" of fans

We've already gotten used to the fact that Kanye West can't be taken at his word: if a rapper promises to release a new album on such and such a date, it's almost pointless to hope that it will actually happen on that date. So the release of Bully was postponed several times. It was expected back in the middle of 2025, then everything was postponed to autumn, then to January 2026, and the last postponement delayed publication until March 27. But even on the appointed date, the record did not appear on streaming, although the day before nothing foreshadowed the cancellation (except Kanye's reputation). However, the rapper made a broadcast on YouTube, where he put all the tracks in a row. Needless to say, it immediately spread across the Internet, so in fact Bully finally reached the public. Even in such an extravagant way.

However, this is far from the first time Kanye has publicly shown material from Bully. The first version of the album was posted by him on a social network in March 2025, and Izvestia wrote about the release then, noting that many of the tracks were made by the artist using artificial intelligence: Kanye used him for backing vocals, and possibly some solo parts. But West threatened to continue working and re-record all the original episodes. Well, strangely enough, he fulfilled this promise, even a year later.

The piquancy of the situation is given by the fact that the physical media — records, CD tracks were in the old version, because they had to be printed in advance. This seems to be the first time in the music industry. Unsurprisingly, many fans who pre-ordered felt cheated. On the other hand, given all the hype surrounding the album, there is no doubt that such a strange imperfect edition will quickly acquire the status of a collector's rarity, such as defective coins, which numismatists value above the "correct" ones.

A deck of tracks

The presence or absence of AI vocals is not the only criterion by which the second version of Bully differs from the first. By and large, we should even talk about three, not two, options here: there are more tracks on physical media than there were in last year's release for social networks (13 instead of 10), but less than what sounded in today's broadcast: Kanye put on 19 tracks, although there were only 18 in the track list published the day before. points. In addition, the artist once again shuffled the sequence of numbers, even compared to yesterday's list.

Did all the changes affect the overall impression of the album? I guess so. It has become even more eclectic, colorful, stylistically wild, although it has not lost its original specificity. We have already noted that Kanye sings rather than reads in many numbers: Bully is one of the rapper's most melodic records, approaching 808s & Heartbreak, West's fourth LP, which is still considered one of his peaks. Among the new, previously unreleased compositions, such numbers include Mama's Favorite.

At the same time, there are several tracks with traditional recitative and a drier sound. Among them is This a Must, but most importantly, Father, where West is accompanied by Travis Scott. For example, in Sistersand Brothers, Ye's recitation alternates with a soul sample, a religious hymn praising Christ.

The album as psychotherapy

Yes, the topic of religion, kinship, finding oneself and fighting your demons in Bully comes to the fore, which is not surprising. For Kanye, making music is a kind of psychotherapy. But why not? If it gives not only a creative and commercial, but also a therapeutic effect for the artist himself, everyone will only be happy.

The degree of inadequacy of the main enfant terrible of American show business in recent years is so great that, it seems, we have already stopped paying attention to his endless antics, whether it be anti-Semitic statements, nudity demonstrations of his wife Bianca Censori or conflicts with past employees. And Kanye's name would have been on a par with trash streamers and other dubious freaks a long time ago if he hadn't kept his creative potential. Bully is another proof that, for all his quirks, Ye remains a great artist and has every chance of returning to the charts, provided that he eventually releases the record on online platforms.

What West has to do is have imagination and a willingness to experiment. Well, and constant dissatisfaction with oneself, paradoxically combined with extreme narcissism. But perhaps it is the awareness of himself as a genius that pushes him to set himself more and more creative challenges. And there is a certain charm in the fact that the audience can literally follow the work on the album in real time, comparing its variants, recording changes and understanding how crazy the artist strives for the ideal. Most likely, illusory and unattainable.