Bully Review

The rollout is its own saga: announced from a stage in China in 2024, previewed on a sampling keyboard, then pushed from June to July to September to November to December to January before landing in March, with physical discs arriving a day ahead of a streaming version carrying a different tracklist. What survives all that is short by his standards and cold in a way he has not been since 808s and Heartbreak, with the abrasion of Yeezus in the drums.

King opens on the sped up soul he built a career from. Father, with Travis Scott, is the one track every camp agrees on. Preacher Man and Beauty and the Beast were out nine months early as promotional singles and work far better in sequence than they did alone. The reviews split exactly where you would expect. Writers who wanted the old sound back got it and said so, and writers who read the lyrics found the songs thin on the page, the two halves disconnected, and the emotion assembled rather than felt.

Both are describing the same album. This is a producer's record with a rapper's name on it, which is why production grades two full tiers above the writing and the card looks lopsided on purpose. Thirty minutes on disc and forty two on streaming is the right length for what he has to say, and it is still longer than the ideas last. A functional comeback, not a redemption.