Kanye West recently revealed that working on Bully reignited his passion for music, crediting one major influence for this creative spark. On Monday (January 20), the hip-hop icon took to Instagram to share his gratitude for his 11-year-old daughter, North, who inspired him to start making beats again. Alongside a photo of North in a recording studio, Kanye wrote, “This little girl made me love music again. She asked me to make beats for her, so I got back on the ASR, chopped up beats for her album, and crafted every track with my bare hands for Bully [smiling face with tears emoji].”
Furthermore, Ye shared a clip of his daughter crafting a beat on an ASR-10 sampler with his cousin Tony Williams, captioning it “training.” He expressed his revived love for hip-hop, calling Master P his “hero.” To honor the genre’s legacy, he posted images of himself revisiting Scarface and Souls of Mischief classics.
Kanye’s Next Chapter: A Solo Vision or a Reunion with Mike Dean?
In other news, Kanye West has dedicated months to Bully while alluding to a reunion with Mike Dean for his 11th solo album.
In Instagram posts earlier this month, Ye revisited The Life of Pablo premiere at Madison Square Garden in 2016, sharing photos with Dean and Tony Williams. Both posts bore the caption “BULLY,” accompanied by the watchful eyes emoji. Dean has kept his distance from Ye since 2022, when the controversial artist embraced far-right figures and escalated his antisemitic rhetoric.
Should the renowned producer and mixing engineer truly be involved in Bully, this marks their first team-up since Donda, despite earlier claims that Kanye would handle the album’s production solo. The journalist Touré said in 2024, “It’s a concept album and he plans to be the only producer on it.” “Traditionally, Kanye is the product of a team, there are producers helping him, there are writers helping him, he comes with the big ideas but there’s others in.” He added, “Not this time. This time, Kanye is gonna make this pretty much by himself. A fresh chapter in his life because in Tokyo he can be who he wants to be.”
Though no release date has been confirmed, Kanye has shared several tracks from Bully and revealed its cover—a striking black-and-white close-up of his 9-year-old son, Saint.
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