Kanye West has revealed the release date for his highly anticipated album Bully.
In a recent interview with Justin Laboy on Sunday, January 2, the renowned American rapper and producer shared that the album will drop on June 15—his daughter North West’s birthday.
“My oldest said that we got to drop it in June,” Ye explained, referring to his 11-year-old daughter. North then asked, “Didn’t Yeezus come out on your birthday?” to which Kanye confirmed, “Yeah, so we’re gonna do it on her birthday. That’s when we’re gonna bring Bully out ’cause that’s her favorite album.”
June 15, will not only mark North’s special day but will also serve as the official release of Bully, an album that holds deep personal significance for Ye.
Kanye recently credited North with reigniting his passion for music, sharing a heartfelt Instagram post of the two working together in the studio.
“This little girl made me love music again,” he wrote. “She asked me to make beats for her. I got back on the ASR, chopped up beats for the album, and chopped every beat with my bare hand for Bully.”
Ye also revealed that the album’s title was inspired by his son, Saint, who appears on the cover. The name Bully stems from a playful moment when Saint playfully “kicked” another child while playing.
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Beyond personal inspiration, Bully will incorporate cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology.
“People are like, ‘Stay away from AI.’ It’s an even more negative reaction than Auto-Tune,” Kanye noted. “I remember when I did Auto-Tune, people thought, ‘Man, this Auto-Tune is trash.’”
He compared AI to the early days of digital music production, recalling a time when artists had to extract instrumentals and vocals manually from 24-track stems.
“Right now, you can take any song and completely separate its elements—just get the vocals, the bassline, the drums. When I send a sample to my engineers, I just say, ‘JS, AI.’ My engineer John Scott. It’s like we’re speaking AI, like THX 1138, the movie George Lucas made before Star Wars.”