“Yeezy season approaching,” Ye boasts in the opening lyrics of his song “On Sight.” The track is the first song on his 2013 album Yeezus. This is common with Ye and his fiery personality: he repeatedly claims to be the greatest rapper, producer and artist ever to live and, on the same album, he claims in the song “I Am a God” that he is a “God.” With Ye having the influence that he does, it can be understood why he feels this arrogantly about himself.
Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, is an American rapper, producer, fashion designer and entrepreneur. He is known for his groundbreaking contributions to the hip-hop industry, with releases such as “The College Dropout,” “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy,” and “Yeezus.” He has also ventured into the fashion industry with his company, Yeezy, stylized YZY. Ye is one of the most controversial figures of this generation, with his outspoken personality, raunchy public statements and personal life choices consistently putting him on the chopping block.
Born to Donda and Ray West on June 8, 1977, he has been and still is arguably one of, if not the most, influential and prominent figures in hip-hop and fashion alike. Since his mother’s death in November 2007, Ye has continually been more and more outspoken with his personal beliefs and critical of not only the music industry but also world events, putting himself in an often controversial spotlight.
Despite all his controversy, every time “Yeezy Season” approaches and a new album is on the way, Ye is still able to rise to the charts and take the world by storm. And we saw this with his new album, Bully. Featured on the cover is Ye’s son to estranged spouse, Kim Kardashian, Saint West. Photographed by legendary Japanese photographer Daidō Moriyama, the cover is a grainy black and white, close-up of Saint sporting a custom pair of grills. The choice of Saint as the focal point, set in Moriyama’s stark, high-contrast style, suggests both a personal and generational statement. The image’s rawness and lack of conventional glamour may symbolize Ye’s ongoing willingness to lay bare his family and personal struggles to the public eye. Additionally, Saint’s grills mirror those worn by Ye himself, hinting at a legacy being passed on and the merging of family and fame. The visual invites the audience to look past the surface, challenging them to interpret the vulnerability, pride and defiance at the heart of the project.
The album was announced on September 28, 2024, during a listening event at the Wuyuan River Stadium in Haikou, China. Following the release of Vultures 2, he teased the project by performing the song “Beauty and the Beast” and stating he was in “full art studio mode.” After a long two years of highs and lows for the community following Ye, rollout intensified in early March 2026, with a confirmed release date of March 27, 2026, announced via Instagram after his partnership with gamma. a multifaceted entertainment company and non-traditional record label. Bully was finally released to streaming platforms on March 27-28, following a chaotic, delayed rollout.
The album in its entirety had AI-generated vocals up until a few months before the release, and Ye was still putting real vocals onto some of the songs during release, as well as going back to master and change vocals on songs after the release. Ye believed that AI was the future of music and he has experimented with it since the infamous “Sky City” track on Vultures 2. After immense pushback from his fans and after there were leaks of the album showing it in an incomplete, treacherous state, Ye tweeted on March 25, 2026, “BULLY ON THE WAY NO AI,” with a picture of a new tracklist. Confirming what many fans had hoped for, Bully was set to release in just a few days from this tweet, without AI vocals.
This new tracklist omitted a few select songs that were on the original tracklist from two years ago, and added a few more, bringing the tracklist total to 18 songs, at 42 minutes long. The album features artists Travis Scott on “Father,” Andre Troutman on the talkbox on “All The Love” and “White Lines,” as well as Don Toliver and Peso Pluma on “Cirlces” and “Last Breath” respectively.
Even after 12 solo albums and a total major project count well beyond 12, Ye remains one of the most prolific, boundary-pushing and polarizing artists in contemporary popular music. The album got almost 40 million streams on Spotify and the same on Apple Music. The album debuted at #2 on Billboard and sold over 200,000 album equivalent units, with 16 out of 18 songs charting on the Billboard Hot 100. On Apple Music, Ye and Travis Scott are the faces of the “Rap Life” curated playlist and the faces of “Rap Caviar” on Spotify, with Bully songs littered throughout both. On Apple Music and Spotify’s charts, Bully is the #1 album, and 16 of the 18 tracks are among the top 67 songs on AM, with Father at #1 and five other tracks following; similar results were seen on Spotify. Bully is the top album in 73 countries as of March 30, even overtaking the long-awaited BTS album, ARIRANG.
Ye had two extremely successful shows at the Sofi stadium in LA. This venue has been home to a multitude of renowned shows for the artist; these two new shows, however, broke many records. The concerts broke the record for the highest revenue ever generated by a single show at SoFi Stadium and set the record for the most tickets sold at the venue. The performances are recognized as the largest stadium concerts for a rapper in the U.S. The two-night run totaled roughly $33 million in gross revenue with about 160,000 attendees. These records were set without traditional marketing.
There is no doubt that Bully has been a long-awaited album for many people and it has performed just as expected.
