Blog #4: Kanye West RELISTEN pt. 2

MARCH 28, 2026

welp. BULLY is out. after like a year of waiting. i started listening to Kanye in april 2025, and i have been anticipating BULLY's release ever since then. the countless delays lowkey made me insane. but it's out... however before i give my thoughts on it i need to go over the rest of his discography. starting with possibly Kanye's best album, The Life of Pablo. this album is a piece of art. it's a nearly perfect collection of songs, which work together so well. ultralight beam is a really beautiful opener, incorporating a choir. this is what Jesus is King should have sounded like. father stretch my hands is genuinenly incredible. well the opening at least. there's a really cool gospel sampling builid-up, a perfectly placed producer tag, then the explosive "beautiful morning". just really fills you with an appreciation for life. then kanye begins talking about fucking a model who just bleached her asshole. pt 2 actually has some proper rapping. famous is great. the female singing is great and i love the "wake up mr west". great callback. then the "bom bom bom bom bay" is just so uplifting when listened to. highlights has the line "diddy shit" which is really funny. i love kanye might be my favourite skit. good thing that the old kanye is BACK with bully. waves is a great track even if it has that weird scream sound or whatever. FML is a really nice slower song with a chorus i kinda like. real friends is also great and, also, sets up the cousin that stole his laptop. i'm sure that won't come back. wolves is beautiful. and silver surfer intermission is really funny. "yeezy yeezy what's good". the first of two phone calls on the album. the next one is in the very next track. 30 hours. this is also a masterpiece. the melancholy sample continuing while ye spouts his bullshit is some of the greatest writing i have ever heard. and then him getting a call at the end is perfect timing. low-key. then we have, in my opinion, kanye's greatest song. no more parties in LA. everything about it is perfect. the samples, the chorus, the lyricism, Mustard Guy. then the climax is the peak of this album. it explains who pablo really is. the different parts of kanye's life, pablo picasso and pablo escobar. then another peak callback with dro dro drop it like robocop. incredible stuff. then the cousin that stole the laptop returns. 10/10. masterpiece. the sample is the most memorable part of facts (charlie kirk version). well that and "yeezy yeezy yeezy just jumped over jumpman". fade is a banger, and Saint Pablo is a beautiful closer. best closing track on any of his albums i'd say. the whole song is brilliantly made and the lyrics are just ye saying whatever is on his mind. and another peak callback "wasn't supposed to make it past 25". a callback to the first song on his first album. made my jaw drop the first time i heard it. fire writing. the singing is also pretty good. his next important release was Lift Yourself. a single made for a single reason: to spite Drake. the sample is unironically great, only for him to start saying "poop scoop poop diddy scoop". 10/10. then ye (2018). a really introspective album. i thought about killing you is really deep if you think about it. not great musically but i don't think that was the point of this record. yikes, all mine and no mistakes are all really good, but the final two tracks are nearly perfect. ghost town is beautiful. the sample on violent crimes has become really iconic and the lyrics are quite deep. as for kids see ghosts, that's actually good music. i don't think it's a 10 like anthony woketardo said, but it's still pretty good. freeee, reborn, kids see ghosts and cudi montage are all incredible tracks. i love them. the album has this really cool psychedelic vibe, i enjoyed it. i don't have much else to say though. after this, kanye started working on yandhi. many consider that album to be incredible and a must-listen. but he didn't release it so i didn't relisten. sorry, i might do it later. the reason he didn't finish yandhi is because he became a hardcore christian. the result was the album Jesus Is King. really based tbh. i like this album a lote more in theory than in execution. the gospel samples and choir are really beautiful and the messages are really good. i appreciate it. but the music just isn't peak. it's a lot more barebones. stll, selah, follow god, on god, god is and use this gospel are great. they're really good christian music. "god is" is so uplifting bro. this generation's closest thing to touch the sky. DONDA is a mess. jail is a great opener. god breathed is a bit too long for my liking. the chorus on hurricane is legitimetaly beautiful, though i vaguely remember liking the yandhi version of this more. i appreciate the samples of donda (the person) throughout the album, they're a nice touch. praise god and believe what i say are great. then the f*cking GLOBGLOBGABGALAB makes a surprise appearance at the end of remote control. incredible. moon is also beautiful. jesus lord is probably the best song on the album. new again goes a bit hard. tell the vision is hilariously poorly recorded. no child left behind is a pretty good closer. no, i do not care about the pt 2s. the album is quite long, several songs could have been cut. but there are some good songs in there. even then, the record is moreso about his divorce than his late mother. i think the single Life of the Party does a much better job at being a tribute for Donda than the album donda itself. as for donda 2, i uh. i really dont care. in 2022 kanye decided to become a nazi. odd choice. i still don't really know if he fully believed everything he said around this time or if he was just seeking attention. but the music he made around this time was also uh. not very good. vultures 1 isn't terrible but it's nowhere near the heights of his previous albums. TY dollar sign does a pretty good job on this album. unlike vultures 2. that one's even worse. there's not a single redeeming quality about it bro. terrible. well at least it's not as bad as the only unreleased album i want to talk about: CUCK. the music and lyrics here are both attrocious. but i still don't really hate it. of course it's probably considered hate speech and ye was probably on nitrous while making this. the legend dave blunts was also involved in its creation. still i feel like there's a message of some kind here. ye just talks about everything hated by society. here he talks about things others would rather not. it mentions terrible figures, like hitler, diddy, epstein, cosby and jared fogle. probably the most infamous song on here is titled "Heil Hitler" (which actually has a pretty fire beat). in the song he says he has become a villain. that's his new persona. he also compares himself to hitler on hitler ye jesus. and he also samples john lennon's God. well it's not really a sample, he just chopped up the beat a tiny bit. but the song Cousins is about his legitimate trauma about child-on-child sexual assault and incest. i think it was necessary for this album to exist so he could finally talk about this. even if this was his musical lowpoint. around this time he also made an EP with Diddy's son. that was just sad, not even funny like CUCK. thankfully, ye forgave the jews and was forgiven by a rabbi. he stopped being a nazi villain and removed all ai from bully. thus he was redemeed just in time to release the greatest album of all time. hopefully. i haven't actually listened to BULLY yet.