Before we dive into this review, I have to address the elephant in the room. Kanye West, over the past couple of years, has been a walking controversy over the countless inflammatory statements he has made referencing Jewish people, nazism, and Black people. Despite this, Kanye, or just Ye, is still making music, which is all I will be focusing on in this article. Although, it must be stated that Ye wrote a formal apology in his letter, To Those I’ve Hurt, where he apologized to the Jewish community. Despite all the controversy, Kanye has released his new and long anticipated album titled Bully, which is what will be focused on in this article.
Bully, released on March 18, 2026 with raving reviews from his longtime fans, with some even calling it his return to his former greatness as an artist. Is this true? No. But this is definitely the best work I’ve seen from Kanye in recent years.
The album starts off very strong with his hit KING, which delves into his controversy in recent years from his perspective. KING feels the most like Kanye’s old music, specifically, his work on the album, 808’s And Heartbreaks. It matches the dark, electronic feel of a variety of his songs on his earlier album, though that is not its only quality. The beat for KING is really heavy and distorted, and features samples from Duke Edwards and The Youngones’ song Reach For The Stars, which, put together, creates a very heavy, hard-hitting tone.
Aside from KING, however, most of the album is completely different from Ye’s old works. My next favorite is ALL THE LOVE, which is strangely pop-like. It feels more like a song from The Weeknd than that of Kanye in all sincerity. But nonetheless, All The Love is a superb song. Featuring hopeful, motivating undertones and harmonic vocals, the song, in essence, is similar to the spirit of his work on Graduation, but in nature is unlike anything we’ve seen from the artist.
My final favorite two songs off the album are PREACHER MAN and FATHER. Both of which have a similar vibe but different tempos and beats. Kinda like two different parts of the same story. Unfortunately, no other songs on the album feature this level of contingency. FATHER is definitely the more upbeat out of the two, symbolising Kanye’s overcoming of sadness through his absurdist world view. While, PREACHER MAN is more themed around Kanye looking back at his past.
Sadly, this is where the quality portion of the album ends. In all honesty, most of Bully is just okay at best. THIS ONE HERE, LAST BREATH, and BULLY are all just too unremarkable to even talk about. But these four songs mentioned above do give me hope for what Ye has to bring in the future, and even more hope that he can overcome his past and grow as a person.
