Ye, who used to go by Kanye West, says his eldest daughter with Kim Kardashian helped spark his passion for music again before his upcoming first solo album since Donda in 2021.
On Monday, he hit Instagram with several updates, including clips showing 11-year-old North working with Tony Williams. One video shows The Last of Us Part II playing in the background – a game Ye recently called “the best game ever made.”
“This little girl made me love music again,” Ye wrote in the caption. “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.”
Ye and North’s dad-daughter project Elementary School Dropout – a nod to his breakout album The College Dropout from 2004 – was announced at a Vultures 2 listening session last year. North’s already featured on both Vultures albums with Ty Dolla Sign, showing up on “Talking” (which she also directed) and “Bomb,” where her sister Chicago West, 7, also appears.
Meanwhile, Bully has hit some sampling snags but word is it’s Ye going back to his roots production-wise. Writer Touré dropped that sources close to the 2025 Grammy nominee (who’s already got 24 wins) say it’s all Ye this time. Ye’s been hinting at this too, both in Monday’s posts (“chopped every beat with my bare hands”) and with some old studio pics from 2024. He’s also teasing Mike Dean’s involvement, though Dean hasn’t confirmed anything yet.
Bully will be Ye’s first solo drop since that controversial 2022 Hitler-praising Alex Jones interview. He posted a Hebrew apology on Instagram a year later. In 2023, he also claimed watching Jonah Hill in 21 Jump Street made him “like Jewish people again,” saying “no one should take anger against one or two individuals and transfer that into hatred towards millions of innocent people.”
21 Jump Street director Christopher Miller’s response? A pretty confused “Um… thanks for watching?”
