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The artist formerly known as Kanye West is crediting his and Kim Kardashian’s oldest daughter, North, with helping him “love music again” ahead of the expect release of his first new solo album since 2021’s Donda.
Monday, Ye shared a number of updates to Instagram, his platform of choice, including brief footage of 11-year-old North working alongside Tony Williams. On the screen in the background of one clip, notably, is a title Ye recently praised as “the best game ever made,” The Last of Us Part II.
“This little girl made me love music again,” Ye captioned one update. “She asked me to make beats for her. I got back on the ASR, chopped up beats for her album and chopped every beat with my bare hands for Bully.”
At a Vultures 2 listening event last year, Elementary School Dropout was announced as the tentative title for North’s debut studio album, itself a nod to Ye’s own debut, 2004’s The College Dropout. Both Vultures volumes with Ty Dolla Sign counted features from North, including on “Talking” (which later received a North-directed video) and “Bomb.” The latter also featured North’s sibling, seven-year-old Chicago West.
As for Bully, the album, which has already run into some sampling issues, has long been speculated to see Ye taking a back-to-basics approach to his production. Journalist Touré last year cited sources close to the 2025 Grammy nominee (and previous 24-time winner) as saying that the album would be an entirely Ye-focused affair. Ye himself has suggested as much, including amid Monday’s updates (“chopped every beat with my bare hands”) and in a string of archival studio photos in 2024. Ye has also teased potential involvement from Mike Dean, though Dean himself has not confirmed this.
Bully, whenever it arrives, will stand as the first Ye solo album to be released since his widely criticized Hitler-praising 2022 interview with Alex Jones. An apology statement was shared to his Instagram one year later, written in Hebrew. Also in 2023, Ye said that watching the Jonah Hill-led comedy 21 Jump Street made him “like Jewish people again,” adding that “no one should take anger against one or two individuals and transfer that into hatred towards millions of innocent people.”
21 Jump Street co-director Christopher Miller later reacted to Ye’s remarks about the film, seemingly expressing confusion with a succinct, “Um… thanks for watching?”
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