Kanye West releases new album ‘Bully’ as short film
Kanye West has released his new album, Bully, as a short film. On March 18th, Ye shared various links to his latest project on X (formerly known as Twitter).
In his initial post, Kanye claimed the album was “not finished and half the vocals AI” but wanted to see what fans thought of the music. He later shared three versions of the film in collaboration with director Hype Williams, which included a “screening version,” a “post Hype version” and a “post post Hype version.”
In the films, Ye’s nine-year-old son, Saint, is shown using a mallet in a wrestling ring for over 30 minutes, soundtracked by an album full of soul samples. Instead of typical streaming services, the album is only available through Adobe’s Frame.io platform.
During an interview with Justin LaBoy last month, Kanye revealed Bully was inspired by Saint, who he considered a “bully” after being told he kicked another kid because he was “weak.” He also compared the project to Lauryn Hill’s classic 1998 album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.
“This is more the way I remember Lauryn Hill[‘s] album, the way I remember Miseducation,” he said. “I feel it is my Miseducation. It is my Gnarls Barkley album. Because Bully has a title and connotation that a lot of people are anti-bully. But I’m just hyper-next-level frequency right now.”
In October last year, journalist Touré revealed Kanye was working on Bully in Japan, claiming he was recording the project mostly on his own.
“Kanye is now living in Tokyo and living in a hotel hard at work on his next album Bully,” he said. “He’s recording the album in the hotel room. Like, all the machines are set up in the hotel room.
“It’s a concept album and he plans to be the only producer on it. Traditionally, Kanye is the product of a team, there are producers helping him, there are writers helping him, he comes with the big ideas but there’s others in.”
He continued, “Not this time. This time, Kanye is gonna make this pretty much by himself. A fresh chapter in his life because in Tokyo he can be who he wants to be.”