2025: Kanye or Ye or Whoever's Bully
Alright, let's talk about Kanye for a minute.
I'm going to be real with you: I held out hope for Kanye to come back for nine years. When Kanye came out with a swastika EP cover I said, "Oh, I can stop holding out hope now." Let's talk outside of our moral currency culture for the moment: I would not immediately dismiss a swastika for an album cover. Art is transformative, and it can change meaning, no matter what the old meaning conveyed. I was frustrated that he was using the swastika to provoke. Not provoke the audience into an alternative meaning, not provoke the audience into a different way of thinking, not provoke the audience into perceiving a different persona of his, but just to provoke, to be outrageous for the sake of being outrageous. I thought, "This is his final transition from artist to social media merchant. I can stop paying attention."
It was well-timed too: Kendrick kickstarted the year with his Super Bowl Halftime show. Listen, Kanye is easily a generational artist; even if he were to screw up for another decade, he would still be important; past that decade, dunno. A lot of what makes / made Kanye great is his ability to connect rap to the outside world, or, make rap bigger than itself. He was nonpareil at imagery, even before Beyoncé, starting with "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" (2010). Watching the Halftime show was a moment of clarity; Kendrick clearly, from the beginning, was inspired by the strong visual and thematic components in Ye's music, and the Halftime show was Kendrick pulling past Kanye. It was frankly - and I'm not a shill for the NFL, at all - fucking amazing. Majestic, even. I watched the Halftime show a lot; it's electrifying to see Kendrick literally yell to the NFL's audience, "Turn this TV off." Kanye has "Runaway"; Kendrick has "HUMBLE." (another performance I've watched so many times); Kendrick has the Halftime show. The winner is clear.
And then, lo and behold, while reading Wikipedia's "Did you know..." for July 29th, I discovered "BULLY".
OK, I am going to do something extremely repulsive, to many people. I am going to say several hyperbolically positive things about Kanye. Please bear with me.
This is what I wrote in the initial draft of this essay:
- "BULLY" might literally be the best thing he released in the last twelve years.
- Ye might actually be at his very best.
- He might be in the process of a career revival - unlikely to be recognized by the music industry proper.
This is what I wrote that isn't hyperbolic at all: it was easily the most music has made me excited the whole year.
A large part of my excitement came from the narrative "BULLY" presented. The truth is, truly great artists aren't great all the way through their careers. Bob Dylan had a dark period. Miles Davis was close to being in obscurity, several times. Et cetera, et cetera, for Johnny Cash, for David Bowie. Kanye would be an exceptionally funny instance because he singlehandedly caused his own dimunition by being such a huge dickhead. But the other reason Kanye would fit into the narrative is because, as puffed up as he often is, he is a true genius. Kanye's slump comes from an inability to be 1. authentic and 2. grounded. He's inauthentic in that he spends most of his music presenting himself as the underdog and underappreciated (which is not true at all), and he's not grounded because he's always distracted by little details.
Let's focus on that: you know what's a great example of Kanye being distracted? His other recordings of 2025, under "In a Perfect World", previously "CUCK", or "CUKKK", or "WW3". You can see the issue already. He sounds energetic in "DIDDY FREE" (which is better than all the "VULTURES" series) but ... what's his point? Diddy is innocent because ... people dislike me for arbitrary reasons? But disregarding that, what's ... the point of the song? What's the narrative? How does it connect to something greater? What observation does it make about humanity? And then there's "COUSINS", which set social media on a storm, if I recall correctly. "COUSINS" has way more going with it than "DIDDY FREE", giving some psychological portraits of ... Kanye giving his cousin head (whether the incident happened or not, it's still a strange thing to associate with Kanye), but the real attraction is the heavy metal guitar riff in the background, really opening a portal into what Kanye is thinking a la Black Sabbath's "Paranoid". But "COUSINS" also dithers, not evolving beyond the premise nor promising of other themes.
And that has been Kanye's discography since 2016's "Life of Pablo": confused, scattered, possessing high points, but not cohering into a larger image which, up until that point, he had been very, very, very, very good at doing.
Which is all to say, "BULLY" does, indeed, match the hype.
Let's talk about "PREACHER MAN". Which means, we have to talk about AI. For five seconds.
All of Kanye's vocals on these songs are AI deepfakes of himself. (For those not in the know: computers can stitch together every audio recording of Kanye and use these to create Frankenstein words / sentences, without any human interaction whatsoever.)
I couldn't care less.
The ethos of art is, "Never be boring". What I mean is, Bob Dylan's voice is ass and he won the Nobel Prize. It's not about the voice, and sometimes it's not even about the music, it's about getting the audience's attention, with an image, a metaphor, a feeling. Using deepfakes in music presupposes that there is something good about the artificial voice, in contrast to something bad; this presupposition is automatically wrong, because the voice is not important. Also, deepfakes just kinda sound funny.
Kanye doesn't use AI for this purpose. Maybe he's lazy and just didn't want to do that much work. I dunno. But the usage works here. If "808s & Heartbreak" (2008) is Kanye becoming disconnected to his emotions, Kanye in "BULLY" is dead. He's a shell of a man. He has achieved final disconnection.
Which is sort of the interesting thing about Kanye: when he finds a pocket of creativity where he is ... less of himself, he seems to activate brilliance. It's not so much Kanye has to not be Kanye to be good, but when he calculates his emotions, rather than throw them pellmell, he finds that needle that threads all the strange parts of his personality. But I digress.
"PREACHER MAN" begins with a bassline that seems distorted, so as to be blunted and muddy-feeling. A single sample replays over and over: "This ring that I hold, / I give to you..." It is silent. There's no spectacle, there's no loudness, there's no false importance. One feels Kanye is actually searching for his thoughts before singing.
What proceeds are fairly skeletal lyrics:
We passed, on the settlement. This path, I don't recommend. We passed, what they expected, man. I go, where they never can. I float, I don't ever land.
Pretty anodyne stuff, but what's remarkable, for Kanye, is that he isn't lunging at the first target that comes to mind. It's nice that he's simply observing the whole mess he's created.
Then, the chorus:
Light 'em up, beam me up, The only GOAT, the genius one,
accompanied by a chopped-up sample that mimics the euphoria of "Waves". What follows is Kanye becoming more specific. He says the "BULLY" isn't about either of his marriages, but the lyrics reflect heavily on the loss of love and the failure of his relationships, with the earlier sample giving the title significance: "I walked up to the preacher man, / just to take your lovely hand..."
Some say "Bully" hails to "808s & Heartbreak" (2008) and "My Beautiful Twisted Dark Fantasy". In my lens, it sounds like a successor to "Yeezus" (2013), probably because I think "Yeezus" is his best album.
Why "Yeezus"? The comparison to "808s" and "MBTDF" is accurate, but not complete. In those albums, Kanye has a flair for the dramatic and showmanship. "Yeezus" is very bleak and brutal, precisely because Ye gave up on fantasy after "MBTDF". What followed from "Yeezus" was "The Life of Pablo" (2016), which found Kanye attempting to be optimistic after adopting such a brutal outlook. In short, "Yeezus" is the best comparison because the aesthetic and content of "Bully" have direct influences from "Yeezus", in particular the chopped-up use of samples a la "Blood on the Leaves".
"Well, OK," one may say, "PREACHER MAN is at least not as bad as his previous songs, but that still doesn't mean he's worth writing about." I turn you to "BEAUTY AND THE BEAST", where AI Kanye croons,
It's been a long time coming, fresh new tires, I'm still running, it's a few things I'm overcoming...
over a fuzzy piano loop. That "fresh new tires, I'm still running" always gets me. In music artists are always reflecting on their own failures, but Kanye, depending on the song, can convince you he is actually trying to improve, where others use their faults to grasp for sympathy. That "fresh new tires" is him groping for a metaphor, even if a canned one, to describe how he's feeling, because he needs to express how he feels. Kanye, I truly think, is not very clever nor calculating, and his music certainly demonstrates how he wears his heart on his sleeve. The softness and gentleness of the singing - even if it's a robot! - conveys the vulnerability and disappointment he's undergoing.
But, again, the chief feature of these tracks is his focus. "BEAUTY AND THE BEAST" is 1 minute and 46 seconds. He repeats the same verses over and over, in a lullaby. It has the effect of himself trying to comfort himself. It isn't showy, and conveys the overall ideas of "BULLY": of his melancholy. The sample, in fact, does more work, which sings "Never put me down, down, down."
And so, to "DAMN", which may be the most a song has affected me this year:
Damn, damn, damn, did I ruin your plans, plans, plans? Well that's the way I am, I gave it all I had, my feelings are the facts of it, there's more of me to navigate,
pray we never crash, crash, crash, today will always last, we're the ones that pass away, so, baby, did you laugh today? This one's for the path we take, magic hourglass, at least I gave you that.
THIS IS THE MOST THOUGHTFUL HE HAS BEEN WITH HIS LYRICS SINCE FUCKING FOREVER. Never mind how upset his robot sounds saying "Damn, damn, damn, / did I ruin your plans, plans, plans?" coupled with the tension of not knowing whether he's sarcastic or not; never mind, too, how pained he sounds saying "Well that's the way I am", this same guy who exhorted his partner to run away from him; that "my feelings are the facts of it" is wounded, asking whoever is listening what it is he's supposed to do. He's lost, as lost as he was in the woods fifteen years ago, but truly without any light. Whereas Kanye in "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" relied on his passion, drive and vision, there is none here. All Kanye has left are these samples, echoes of human interaction.
I see one can make the argument that these are demos, which is why Kanye repeats so many verses, but, if I had Kanye's ear, I would say this: Don't change a thing. Don't add more verses. Keep it simple and direct. Listen, Kanye (I'm still under the presumption I have his ear), nobody ever said Dilla's "Donuts" is incomplete. You have an ear for sonics: as in, how sound interacts with the human mind, to make emotion. You are literally better in this specific category of music than 99.99999999% of the people on the planet. You're particularly skilled at not overplaying a sound or making it schmaltzy. Your lyrics? Yeah, they're overwrought, but your beatmaking is not. Keep the music as what it is now: collages of thoughts, that don't present a united narrative but an overall painting. Because that's what "BULLY" is: a painting of your fears and insecurities which, combined with your unique personality, is moving.
The other songs, to add, "LAST BREATH" and "LOSING YOUR MIND" are great, but, as to the former, I highly doubt Kanye actually knows Spanish. It's weird. His exhausted "OK, you win, babe, you're right", is incredible, however. "LOSING YOUR MIND" uses the instrumentals of Can's "Vitamin C", and it's great: it captures the anxiety of the latter. "The only GOAT, the genius one," indeed.
On Ye, the man
Alright, let's fall back a little.
To this day, we are still talking about Jay Electronica. Who, also, has allegations of antisemitism.
But you know what's the difference between Jay Elect and Ye? Jay shuts the fuck up.
Let's turn the subject to the actual bête noire: accountability.
R. Kelly had one final impact on music: he raised the question, by virtue of his being a truly despicable person, of whether we should listen, and thereby promote, the music of monsters. Here's my take: fuck R. Kelly. But, should we damn R. Kelly's music?
I think the inevitable argument is, it's just music. It's just pleasure. You don't actually need it. Well: fair. But to me, the conversation shouldn't be on whether we can or cannot do something, it should be on the principle of whether we should. So, to pose the question again: should we damn R. Kelly's music?
If we are going to be precise, what is so loathsome about him? It's his crime, straight and simple: he groomed minors to perform sexual acts with him. Is his crime connected to his music? It depends on how you look at it: his music financially supports him, which supports his crime.
And yet, the issue of his crime, to some extent, is not about the crime: we know he did something wrong, and he should be punished for it. Because we all assent to this, there's actually no issue. We cannot be hurt by the consequences of his actions because we recognize their damage and so avoid them.
The issue is not necessarily in the crime itself, but in the justice system, which has been slow in recognizing and prosecuting his crime: slow as measured by DECADES. We, therefore, do not act idealistically, because we do not live in an ideal society; we act pragmatically. Pragmatically, yes, it makes sense to boycott his music, because of the relationship between his music and his crimes we made before.
Do circumstances change because he is in jail? Not really; it's not as if going to jail means you can't make money anymore, though the money has dramatically limited use while he is incarcerated. Still, I wouldn't blame anyone for continuing the boycott, though I also wouldn't blame anyone who finds the proposition ridiculous as well: jail is not just punishing, it is destructive, towards one's health and wealth. Imprisonment is a truly shitty condition. I understand if someone is not keen to beat a man, any man, while he's down.
And yet, physically, he can no longer do harm to society, unless he employs proxies. So it is up to one's interpretation.
The ultimate takeaway is, the failure of the justice system is what caused all of this grief.
Which is to say, the accountability, in this scenario, is not on us, the audience; it is on the function and efficiency of our judicial system. However, I understand why we, as a practical matter, want to punish Kelly via his music, not necessarily on account of moral clarity, but for limiting Kelly's impact on the world and therefore our own neighborhoods, as minimal the consequences of our actions may be.
I wanted to lay every point very clearly because this conversation can become very complicated. And I will make it even more complicated by adding:
Perhaps some people take umbrage with his music, because they believe it has the same immoral qualities as he does. Fortunately, this is easy to argue against, as this argument rests on a single flawed assumption: that the same character doing said crimes is the same making said music. This is not true. People are multifaceted. In particular, with creativity, people often form another "persona" - as David Bowie, as Prince, as Charles Mingus. This is the reason why music is transcendent, and music is progressive: one must literally find something beyond oneself.
Now, the question to ask is: is it actually, factually true that creative people do this, that is, form different personas? To which I answer: I'm not going to answer that in this essay, as then there will need to be a billion more paragraphs. Let's stop the inquiry for now.
And so, here we arrive at the final point of discussion: on giving people of dubitable reputation a platform. Kanye - and this point must be emphasized - hasn't done anything criminal, but it seems he's fairly anti-semitic, and it's valid to ask whether he has moved on from Private Asshole to Public-And-Affecting-Other-People Asshole. I didn't spend all those words above to say, "If you get angry over music you're an idiot hurr durr" but more to say, I understand why someone would be displeased with Kanye and, by extension, displeased by someone choosing to write about Kanye.
My only defense is, it's just about the music. It's only about the music. Never will I say - I hope I will never say - logically, I should never say - if I employ my reason rightly and powerfully, I will never say - the music absolves a person's sins. I would rather say, everyone, regardless of background, regardless of skill, regardless of belief, should be absolved from their sins, because we are human, and flawed, but that is a whole different discussion altogether.
Kanye's music does not absolve him. It does not make him a better person, nor does it elevate him. It may explain aspects of his behavior; it may make him empathetic; it may reveal things about his, and our, humanity; but it will never make his actions forgivable, because actions have consequences, and consequences are, by nature, inhuman and external to us - and this is and will always be true, regardless of the very human intent behind those actions, and we would be foolish and inviting hazard by believing otherwise. He has said many untruthful things, about the Jewish people, about slavery, but the most prominent attribute of the things he has said is that they are untruthful, and not in accordance with reality; thereby, not being realistic, he has cheated himself and his audience out of happiness. (I can attest, I'm not being paid by the Jewish Illuminati to say this.) He is, arguably, facing the consequences of his actions, because now everyone knows he can't be excused merely for being vocal; he is vocal, in fact, because he is a giant dickhead. And, in a twisted way, acknowledging he is human only through his music is saying he can only be loved for his music, that is, he can only be loved conditionally, but this is so evil a thing to say I hesitate to say it, and yet it is practically true. Perhaps this is all a product of the death of his mother.
And, to be clear, you can absolutely separate the art from the artist. You can. You know why? Because the art has physical dimensions. It literally has a limit, and it definitely has an existence separate from the artist. What people really mean is, is it possible to praise the art without praising the artist (and thereby endowing them with positive traits)? Yes, by looking at the art exclusively and not at the artist. Is it difficult to do? Yes. Can you do it? Yes. Disliking the artist and liking the art is actually a bit easier in the realm of streaming, because I don't mind giving Kanye the hundredths of a cent for my listens.
And, ladies and gentlemen, if you truly, truly hate the artist and want to reduce their impact on the world, what do you do? The answer is so simple, everyone knows it by heart: you ignore them and treat them only with silence. You can still like the art completely devoid of the context of the artist, and you can still hurt the artist by ignoring them. If you hate Kanye, treat him with silence; if you hate this essay, treat it with silence, I certainly don't get ad money for this (at the time of writing, anyway). And, to be clear once more, this isn't to say "LOL get over it", it's more, you are actually really, really powerful, and by simply offering only silence to an artist or a critic you are able to change reality. Which reality, if we're going to be frank, has been definitively and profoundly been changed for Kanye, who, at this point in his career, in an alternate timeline, should be making soundtracks for Disney and shit.
To conclude: the evilest thing you can do is remind artists they are disposable. And I was very close to doing this for Kanye, and, to some extent, I am still doing this now, because he really was not worth talking about for the last five years and I'm only throwing him a raft if he actually accomplishes something. (I guess I did write about "Waves" last year. Fuck.)
My only hope for Kanye is that, by focusing on the virtues of the music, he acquires some virtues in his person. I do believe in music's ability to transcend and allow a person to see the truth. I do believe in art's ability to perform miracles, not in society, but in the individual.
But hope, frankly, runs thin. Miles Davis was an asshole. Pablo Picasso was a monster. Sometimes art makes super shitty people less shitty. Sometimes the fame attendant with art makes mild people much more awful; and yet, to be clear, the art does not do so, but the fame, the attention, the privilege that comes with art, which is more of a dysfunction of a world without equality. And yet that characterizes hope, doesn't it? that it is deeply, deeply irrational, and yet we still resort to it anyway.
It's this tension, of deeply flawed, insecure people, making deeply resonant art, that draws, confounds, and excites critics, and perhaps makes us reflect on whether we share more qualities with the music and therefore the artist than we realize.
But at the end of the day, it's just about the music, for which the artist is but a vessel.