Kanye West has rebuked claims that his long-teased next album, Bully, was made with the help of generative AI. In an X post shared on Wednesday, March 25, the rapper revealed a track list for the album—which features 13 songs, including previously-previewed tracks like “Beauty and the Beast” and “Preacher Man”—with the caption “BULLY ON THE WAY NO AI.”
The post contradicts statements West made last year in an interview with Justin Laboy. At the time, West told Laboy that he incorporated AI into his writing process “the same way I incorporated Auto-Tune. It’s a tool, not a replacement.” In a video that accompanied the conversation, some viewers noticed that West was using the platform Audimee, which allows users to transform their vocals using AI, royalty-free.
“It’s time for me to explain to people the power of AI in music,” West added in the interview. “Right now, you can take any song and separate it—just get the vocals, just get the bass line, the drums—and completely isolate it. So when I send a song or a sample to my engineers, I just say, ‘JS [his engineer, John Scott], AI.’” Since the interview, however, multiple of West’s associates— including music manager Peter Jideonwo and former Yeezy chief of staff and far-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos—have stated that Bully contains no AI.
West has been teasing Bully since September 2024, when he previewed “Beauty and the Beast” during a set in Haikou, China. In 2025, West also shared the short film Bully V1 on X. It starred his son, Saint West, and contained a significant portion of the Bully track list he posted today. Earlier this year, West confirmed Bully would arrive on March 20 via the independent music company Gamma. Since that day passed, West has yet to confirm a new release date.
The two years since West first announced Bully have been tumultuous ones: since the China show, he has been accused of sexual assault and sexual battery by two separate plaintiffs, and professed himself a “Nazi” and a “racist” in a series of X posts. In January, West took out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal apologizing for his pattern of erratic and antisemitic behavior, attributing it to bipolar disorder and a frontal-lobe injury he sustained during a 2002 car crash, which he said wasn’t “properly diagnosed” until 2023. “I’m not asking for sympathy, or a free pass, though I aspire to earn your forgiveness,” he said. “I write today simply to ask for your patience and understanding as I find my way home.”
