S Poddar
Kanye West, officially known as Ye, announced his new record Bully in an invite-only listening session in China. The artist gave the audience a sneak preview of his new aural directions as he performed at Wuyuan River Stadium in Haikou and released yet another unreleased one, Beauty and the Beast, on September 28.
The venture also represents the second in a series of collaborative efforts with Ty Dolla $ign: Vultures 1 and Vultures 2. The latter instalment of the Vultures series was released earlier this year. Ye made an appearance in China nearly two weeks after the second listening party at this stadium, when he first brought all four of his children out on stage.
Speaking to the people, Ye was brief as he revealed that, “I just got a new album coming out, it’s called Bully, and this is called Beauty and the Beast, before delivering the new track. Neither the release date for the album nor for the track has been yet informed officially”.
In his rendition of Beauty and the Beast, Ye spat over minimalist instrumentation from an electric guitar as he served rawly emotive lyrics: “I still think about it every night and day to try to stay away, to keep my audience / Don’t take this disrespect, I’m sitting here trying to redirect.” Footage from fan recordings has already begun popping up online.
Interestingly, another longtime partner with West, Mike Dean, weighed in on the single declaring it a “Donda leftover.” Dean had been working with Ye since his debut The College Dropout in 2004 but hasn’t been heard from since his release of the track True Love in 2022 under the late XXXTentacion. His comment on Beauty and the Beast appeared on Instagram where he quoted a section of Ye’s 2021 album Donda.
Ye’s Vultures series with Ty Dolla $ign have raised enough dust and mixed reviews over time. Vultures 1, released under the duo’s moniker ¥$ on February 10, attracted a lot of flak for its misogynistic content. NME gave it two stars, saying that it was “far from one of his best efforts” and “mired in misogyny.” Album cuts include such powerhouse hits like works from Freddie Gibbs, YG, Playboi Carti, Travis Scott, and even Ye’s daughter, North West.
Vultures 2, which arrived on August 4 – a full five months after the record had been meant to drop in March – was reportedly on track to debut at number one on the Billboard 200, but Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poet’s Department bumped it down a spot, ending Ye’s streak of 19 consecutive albums debuting at Number One.
Fans and critics have responded to Vultures 2 with decidedly mixed opinions. It is also noteworthy that the album has been litigated hotly, as for example Geoff Barrow complained that one of its tracks sampled Portishead without permission. However this is not the first time Ye has been involved in such a scandal. The Vultures transcription was the first to face the lawsuit when Donna Summer’s estate claimed he used illegally her track I Feel Love on Vultures 1, a case which was later settled.
There’s value beyond the new music being played at Ye’s listening parties. They’re also spectacles in their own right. Last month, it was all over social media when Ye made a splash during an Adidas event in South Korea; he rode horseback for an entrance and led a chant against Adidas. This explosion likely resulted from the decision of the company to end their partnership with him in 2022 after an antisemitic statement he released. The company’s end with Adidas was a significant talking point, and Ye released explicit statements to release anger and frustration at the after-shocks for his comments.
With Bully on its way, the music world waits and sees where Ye will go next. And so it goes for much of Ye’s career: fans and critics alike wait in anticipation for the unexpected, because the talent for pushing boundaries, making headlines, and keeping his audience on its toes is apparently encoded in the essence of this fearless artist. Will Bully therefore be spoken of in terms similar to the works in the Vultures series, or will it take things in another direction? Difficult to predict-but one thing is for sure: Ye knows neither controversy nor creative reinvention.
