Cuck (album)

Collaborations with Dave Blunts

In February 2025, West met Dave Blunts through a mutual connection after West became a fan of Blunts's music.^[3][4] Blunts played his then-unreleased album You Can't Say That (2025) to West, who loved it and asked him to write an entire album with a similar vibe, leading to the creation of Cuck.^[4] Blunts soon began writing and recording demos for the album, spending around 20 to 30 minutes on each and basing their lyrics off of his phone calls and in-person conversations with West, as well as tweets West was posting at the time.^[4][5] According to West, these calls would last several hours.^[6] Most of Blunts's songs were written quickly and received immediate praise from West,^[4] though he sometimes asked for rewrites, resulting in Blunts rewriting a track upwards of twenty times at West's request.^[7] Despite being known for his production, Blunts was not provided beats by West for recording,^[4] causing him to bring frequent collaborators Quadwoofer and Sheffmade^[7] with him when touring to ensure he would have material to write on.^[4] The duo later became the primary producers for Cuck.^[7]

Regarding the creation of "Cousins", Blunts recalled that he wrote the song for West after the latter told him about his former relationship with his cousin, being able to tell that the song was "very freeing for him" when conceptualizing it. Blunts believed West chose him for songwriting due to having a "blunt approach to it" without double entendres.^[8] Quadwoofer and Sheffmade were asleep when Blunts recorded his demo for the song, leading him to instead use a beat he downloaded off of YouTube.^[4] Blunts had repeatedly denied that the lyrical content of Cuck is antisemitic, describing the album as being "about one man going between hurt, betrayal and pain and he's putting that shit down..."^[9] On September 13, 2025, Blunts took to Instagram to announce that he was cutting ties with West and would no longer work on the album, urging him to "find God".^[10] He later released several diss tracks aimed at West, which alleged that West "groomed" him into writing the album's antisemitic lyrics.^[11][12]

Leak

On May 18, 2025, the album was leaked in its entirety after a US$999^[13] charity group buy for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum via the messaging site Discord. The leaked album files contained derogatory messaging towards West in its media and metadata as a form of protest, including listing Blunts as the song artist instead of West, listing "AI" and "1945" as its genre and date respectively, and replacing the cover with a 1994 picture of West wearing an antifascist shirt with the title "Fuck Nazis" and a subtitle—"50 year old loser promoting fascism and hate speech"—overlaid onto it.^[14] West acknowledged the leak on Twitter, clarifying that the song "Uncle" was no longer part of the album, and its lyrics were not related to his wife Censori.^[15][16] According to West, the copy was compiled from a drive, and alongside getting blocked from digital service providers and shows cancelled, "it proves everything I'm saying and why I'm saying."^[17][14] Members in the Discord server where the leak originated later claimed that the individual responsible for leaking the album had bought it from someone in West's inner circle.^[18]

Album rollout and singles

On March 6, West stated that his upcoming music would feature an "antisemitic sound".^[19][20][21] On March 16, he posted images of a Nazi swastika and the sig runes of the Schutzstaffel (SS), claiming them to be his "new album cover" and "new Sunday Service logo", respectively.^[22] West first teased the song "WW3" on March 15 on his Twitter account.^[23] Prior to its release, Blunts and streamer Adin Ross had reacted to the song; the latter initially expressed negative feelings,^[24] but later seemed to enjoy the song when reacting to it on stream with rapper Kodak Black.^[25] West released "WW3" as a single on March 26.^[24] On March 30, DJ Akademiks held an interview in which West wore a black Ku Klux Klan-inspired outfit and made further controversial remarks, including stating that he regrets having children with his ex-wife Kim Kardashian. He made negative remarks about various other celebrities, including Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Playboi Carti, Kendrick Lamar, Ty Dolla Sign, and the late Virgil Abloh.^[26][27] The following day, West released the music video to "WW3" on Twitter. The video contains a repurposed scene from the American television miniseries Roots alongside graphic sexual imagery featuring interracial sex and footage of a KKK gathering.^[28]

On April 2, DJ Akademiks announced that the album, initially titled WW3, would be released the next day, and shared the track listing.^[29] Akademiks also previewed the track "Bianca"; the lyrics of the track concern West's separation from his wife Bianca Censori, pleading with her to "come back".^[30] When the album failed to drop on April 3, West revealed the album cover, which depicts a male and female Klan member wearing white and red KKK-inspired outfits, respectively, posing in front of a stack of hay bales.^[31] The album cover is an edited version of the 2015 photo The wedding of two members of the KKK in a barn in rural America by Peter van Agtmael, who claimed that West's use of the photograph was unauthorized.^[32]

On April 21, West announced that he was changing the title of the album to Cuck (short for cuckold in popular culture), which he said represented "[his] whole style".^[33] He released the music video for the second single called "Cousins" the same day in a tweet, revealing the song is based on his cousin who was imprisoned for murdering a pregnant woman a few years after West told him they would not "look at dirty magazines together" anymore.^[34] The track contains lyrics discussing West's experience having an incestuous relationship with a male cousin as a child and his recreational use of nitrous oxide.^[9] The music video consists of low quality footage drawn from home media, TV commercials, and pornography.^[35]

On May 7, West stated on Twitter that he was uploading the third single called "Heil Hitler". On May 8, he released the music video for the single, featuring men draped in animal skins singing the chorus, with the outro sampling a speech by Adolf Hitler.^[36][37] West subsequently released the song on SoundCloud and Scrybe. West then stated on May 9 that the song was "banned by all digital streaming platforms".^[38][39] An instrumental version titled "The Heil Symphony" was uploaded in its place on May 14.^[40][41]

Retractions and alterations

On May 20, "WW3" was removed from all streaming services, followed by West tweeting that he was "done with antisemitism" following a FaceTime call with his children on May 22. He asked God to "forgive [him] for the pain I've caused" and said that he forgave those who caused him pain.^[42] He later re-uploaded the song, with new black cover art and censoring of the words "Nazi", "Swastikas", "Hitler", "Antisemitic" and "Mein Kampf".^[43] "The Heil Symphony" was also taken down, later re-uploaded with black cover art and the updated name "Hit Symphony".^[44] On May 31, an edited version of "Heil Hitler" titled "Hallelujah" was uploaded to YouTube before being added to streaming services, which replaces references to Nazism with Christianity.^[45]

On June 22, West posted to X that he was thinking about changing the album's name from "Cuck" to "In a Perfect World".^[46][47] He later posted "In a Perfect World", implying that it was the new title for the album.^[48] Blunts also updated the caption of an image of him and West on Instagram, changing it from "Cucks" to "In a Perfect World" to reflect the name change.^[49] In an interview with VladTV, Blunts claimed that West had moved on from antisemitic rhetoric, stating that, "he's not on that anymore, he's doing better now."^[50] The song "Diddy Free", originally featured on Cuck, was reworked and released on Never Stop on June 27, an extended play (EP) by Christian "King" Combs, which was executively produced by West.^[51]

West later played "Gas Chambers", also known as "All the Love", in a rehearsal a day prior to his concert in Shanghai on July 11, but he did not play the song during the concert.^[52] The album tracks "WW3" and "Hallelujah" were played at the concert on July 12 without West's approval or knowledge according to a post made by his team on Xiaohongshu,^[53] along with songs from his upcoming album Bully and his song with YoungBoy Never Broke Again, "Alive" (2025).^[54]

Since then, on November 17, "WW3," "Cousins", and "Heil Hitler", along with their alternate versions "Hallelujah" and "Hit Symphony", were removed from all streaming services following his apology to Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto.^[55] In January 2026, West published an open letter in The Wall Street Journal in which he apologized for his antisemitic remarks and behavior, stating his outbursts stemmed from manic episodes in which he "gravitated toward the most destructive symbol I could find, the swastika", as he refused to accept his bipolar disorder diagnosis. West said he was "deeply mortified by [his] actions" and pledged to take "accountability, treatment, and meaningful change".^[56] The song "Gas Chambers" was repurposed for Bully under its alternate title "All the Love", appearing in the tracklist for the album. West later played "All the Love" during his concerts in Mexico on January 30 and 31.^[57][58][59]

Music

• Ye – vocals (1–4, 6–15), production (1, 7),^[68][69]
• Quadwoofer – production (1–2, 11–12),^[68][70]
• Sheffmade – production (1–2, 11–12),^[68][70]
• Templecitygrounds (G06 Beatz, Theevoni, Fvbii) – production (1)^[71]
• Dave Blunts – vocals (6)^[72]
• Chuki Beats – production (7)^[69]
• Digital Nas – production (7)^[73]
• The Hooligans – additional vocals (11)^[74]
• Fromdabunka (Dean Durkin) – production (14)^[75]

Technical

• Rasta Tahj – recording (11)^[76]
• Nkenge 1x – recording, mixing, mastering (12)^[77]